Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Fences is a tile-laying game in which you are a farmer trying to build pens for your animals. On each turn, a player plays one of the two tiles that they have.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Fences is a tile-laying game in which you are a farmer trying to build pens for your animals. On each turn, a player plays one of the two tiles that they have. After placing, the player can decide whether to claim an unclaimed field. If a field has been closed, it is scored accordingly. To end the player's turn, a new tile is drawn. There are fields for cows, meadows for sheep, and mud holes for pigs. You are trying to collect as many animals as you can. Every animal you enclose is worth points, and double points if you FENCE in only one type of animal in the pen. You can also throw other animals into your opponents’ perfect fields to keep them from the bonus. Careful, you can only afford to maintain a limited number of fields. The game ends after the last tile is placed. The farmer with the most points wins!