Aufbruch Ins Abenteuer

Overview

In Aufbruch ins Abenteuer, you're trying to attach balloons to various baskets so that the animals can take flight above the ground where they normally lie and play. Each player starts the game with a gear wheel, then a deck of 53 cards is shuffled and placed face down. On a turn, a player draws either the top card of the deck or a face-down card that was placed on the table earlier by a player. If you draw a basket, you can place it in front of you; each basket has one of three animals in it — dog, cat or badger — with 1-3 animals of that type. If you have a basket and draw a balloon of the appropriate color — red for dog, blue for cat, brown for badger — you can add the balloon to the basket; if the basket now has as many balloons as animal adventurers in the basket, place the basket to the side to score points for it at the end of the game. If you draw a finish line card, you can place it face up on the table. If you don't want to use a card or can't use it — such as when you draw a badger basket and are already working on one — place it face down on the table where someone else can draw it later. You can discard your gear wheel from the game to draw a second card on your turn. When three of the five finish line cards are face up, the game ends and everyone scores one point for each animal adventurer in a balloon you've completed. Whoever has the highest score wins! For younger players, leave out the finish line cards and have the game end when only a single card remains in the deck. For older players, have them score negative points for baskets started and not finished, with each such basket worth -1 point and each balloon attached to these baskets also worth -1 point.