It’s an “action efficiency” game: You have to figure out how to gain points (mostly represented by ducks in your play area) while wasting as few moves as possible.
The park is the main play area. Here we see it at the start of the game. The white-bordered hexes’ locations are fixed; the other hexes are placed randomly. Each hex starts with a randomly-selected duck. Each player is represented by a figure at the front of a “sled” that can be used to hold ducks that you’ve managed to attract to you.My play area at the start of the game. Everyone stars with four seeds, and a couple of ducks (orange and brown in my case) who are already gathered by you. The color of a seed has to match the color of the duck in the park if you want to collect it.As you continue to gather ducks through photography or adoption, you build up a tableau of cards (see the next picture). In this picture we see bonus overlays you can put on top of your tableau if you can get the ducks in a given pattern.This is M’s play area at the end of the game. In any given row, you score as many points as your longest chain of ducks. M received three extra points because, due to how she arranged her ducks, she was able to add one of the bonus overlays.J’s play area at the end of the game. He managed to get two bonus overlays on his tableau. He won, with a solid 21 points.
For us, Ducks in Tow was a relatively short game, taking only two hours to play. (Yes, the box says 30-60 minutes, but there’s lots of AP in our group.) The chief joy in playing this game is all the duck puns:
“You gotta get all your ducks in a row.”
“Ducks are such voyeurs. Haven’t you heard of Peking Duck?”
“You’ve got all those ducks in front of you. You really are a mother-ducker.”
I’m either ashamed or proud to say that the source of most of the duck jokes was me.
