Help Me! 2011

Polar bears, koalas, emperor penguins, cute little panda bears – they all need your help to survive, but alas only one species (and one player) can come out on top in Help Me!

The game includes 30 animal tiles, with six different types of animals, each valued 1-5. To set up the game, randomly create a 5x6 grid of animal tiles. Each player secretly chooses one of the six animal character tiles to see which animal they want to save.

On a turn, a player chooses any tile or stack of tiles and moves the tile/stack orthogonally onto an adjacent tile/stack. You can't move a tile to an empty space. When no more tiles/stacks can be moved, the game ends. Each player then reveals his animal character and takes all stacks that have that type of animal on top. The player scores one point for each tile he collects; in addition, if any of the type of animal are within a stack (not on top), the player scores points equal to the value of that buried animal tile.

The rules include a team variant in which players combine their scores at the end of the game, but don't know which animals their teammates are trying to save. Watch for tears and other clues of sadness when particular animals disappear from the board...