Game Review: Have You Herd?

By W. Eric Martin
July 24, 2008

Publisher: Winning Moves
Designer: Karol Borsuk
Players: 2-4
Ages: 8+
Language: English
Price: $13
Links:

Version played: Production copy
Times played: Six, twice each with 2, 3 & 4

When you work in a specialized field of interest, you can often make a name for yourself among peers and fans while remaining invisible to the rest of the world. Think of how many game designers you can name, for example – not to mention their creations – then consider how many of those names would be recognized by Joe or Jane Sixpack.

Karol Borsuk, is a name well-known to topologists, those mathematicians who study the properties of space. My copy of James Munkres’ Topology: A First Course – a classic work that’s still in use decades after being written – covers a couple of Borsuk’s theorems in the final pages: Let X be a compact subset of R². If 0 lies in a bounded component C of R² – X, then the inclusion map j: X → R² – 0 is essential; and conversely. Well, duh.

But fame in mathematics doesn’t translate to fame in the real world except for those few people like Andrew Wiles who solve a problem so vexing that it’s withstood hundreds of years of attempted solutions a la Fermat’s Last Theorem. Karol Borsuk, despite his discoveries in topology, lacks that real-world presence – but another of his creations, a non-mathematical one, does have a chance at mainstream acceptance: the dice game Have You Herd?, published in Poland by Granna under the name Super Farmer.

According to this (Polish) review of Super Farmer, Borsuk created the game in 1943 out of desperation, having lost his job at Warsaw University due to the German occupation. His wife Zofia sold copies of his handmade game, and while most of them disappeared in the flames that accompanied the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, at least one copy survived. Super Farmer was born from that copy, and Have You Herd? marks the first publication of the game in the U.S.

Animal Trading Made E-Z

Despite its Polish origins, Have You Herd? is a mainstream American game through and through, at least as presented by Winning Moves. To start with, the game comes packaged in a silo inside clamshell packaging, with the customized 12-sided dice visible through bubbles in the plastic. “Look,” the package screams, “cool dice! And a funky container! Now grab a knife and try to free me without slicing off your digits.”

Aside from the unique dodecahedrons, the game consists of rules, a bunch of animal tiles (bunnies, sheep, pigs, cows, and horses), a skunk token, and a few guard dog tiles. You are now an animal breeder, and you want to obtain one animal of each type, presumably to show off the well-rounded nature of your farm. Each player begins with one lone bunny.

Each turn, you can make one trade, then you try to breed more animals, then you can trade again. The possible trades are shown on the side of the silo: five bunnies for one sheep, two sheep for a pig, one bunny and one sheep for a guard dog, and so on. The trades are all one way, from left to right, and you trade only with the bank.

To breed, you roll the dice, then look at the top die faces and all your animal holdings. For each pair of animals, you get another one of the same type: Two bunnies gets you one more bunny, four bunnies gets you two, and so on. Your holdings are capped at a dozen bunnies and one horse, but are otherwise unlimited.

As you might imagine, the dice can stiff you and they can flood your barn with critters – especially since you roll again on doubles (another Americanism!), which ups your production even further. Thus the luck factor is high, and I’ve seen some players end the game with little more than they started with. On the plus side, if the dice hate you, the game will end in 10-15 minutes anyway.

The only choices you can make during the game are when to trade and what to get, but those choices do have some impact on your future success. Do you hold on to the bunnies at first to max them out and have lots of trading fodder, or do you trade up as quickly as you can? Do you— hmm, okay, there really aren’t that many trading choices to make. Depending on who the other players are, that can be good or bad. Played with gamers, the game received comments from “has something there” to “okay” to “too long for what it is”; played with sixty-year-old women at a spay/neuter clinic I volunteer at, the game had a more positive reception.

Protecting the Players

In addition to animal silhouettes, the dice also feature a few special symbols – and these differ from what’s in the Polish version of the game, highlighting the different audience that Winning Moves wants to sell on this game. (Note that I’m basing these differences on a Super Farmer review by Wojtek Wojcik on BoardGameGeek.) These symbols are:

• A fox – In Have You Herd?, the fox steals all but one of your bunnies; if you have a dog, however, the fox runs away with nothing. In Super Farmer, without dog protection the fox steals all of your bunnies.

• A wolf – In Super Farmer, the wolf is a tough customer wiping out all your animals other than a horse and small dogs unless you have a big dog to protect the farm; in Have You Herd? if you lack dog protection, you roll the dice when the wolf arrives and lose only one animal of the types shown on the dice. What a wimpy wolf!

• A guard dog – Super Farmer has two types of dogs, small ones to protect against foxes and large ones for wolves, and you can apparently get them only by trading, which adds a decision point to the game. Have You Herd? has only one type of dog, which scares off the fox without dying and fights the wolf to the death. In addition to trading for the dog, you can roll one on the dice, making it easier (and cheaper) for you to find protection.

• The letter “T” – While Super Farmer allows you to trade with other players on your turn, Have You Herd? restricts your trades with the bank, except for when you roll a “T” which allows a forced trade with an opponent. This trade almost never sets back an opponent, however, because you’re giving her the animals she needs to trade with the bank at the start of the next turn, costing her at most half a turn and more typically nothing at all. (If she has a dozen bunnies and you can force more on her that she’ll then have to discard, then you’ve gained a smidge.) Thus, one element of encouraged interactivity has been sidelined for special occasions.

• A skunk – Roll a skunk, and you give an opponent the skunk token, forcing them to lose a turn. I’m not sure whether this is in Super Farmer or not.

One final change from Polish to English is a simplified trading table, which allows players to trade up to cows more easily, and while I haven’t played Super Farmer this change brings a quick end to the game for those who catch on to its implications. If I start a turn with X bunnies, three sheep, one pig, and one cow, I’ll win the game at the end of my next turn (assuming I don’t roll a fox, a wolf, or two special symbols, all of which cancel breeding for that turn). How? Two sheep become a pig, a third pig is born, and two pigs become a cow. Next turn, cow #3 is born, and I trade for a horse to win.

You’re frequently within striking distance of the win, but most casual gamers haven’t recognized this, focusing on getting sheep and bunnies that they don’t need. At a table filled with gamers, the luck factor becomes more important because players recognize how to win faster. With a harsher fox, wolf, and trading table, you’d need to worry about dog protection and the risks of pushing your luck through intense breeding would come into play more, whereas that isn’t an issue with Have You Herd?

Casual gamers might enjoy the difference of Have You Herd?, which does stand out from mainstream American offerings, but for those curious to try the more gamery Super Farmer, this review details most of the differences between the two games, including the trade table from Super Farmer shown above.

Dice and token images used with the permission of James Barnes (patchwerq on BoardGameGeek); Super Farmer gameboards image used with the permission of Lukasz Rygalo (Pionek on BGG)

Want to own the only game packed in a silo with a plastic domed top? Then head to BGN’s Games for the Animals page to see whether this game is still available!

---

Comments:

You must register with BGN in order to comment. Registration is free, but if you appreciate the news, previews, reviews and other material posted on Boardgame News, please consider becoming a member to keep the info flowing to your screen!

The influence of this game on Sid Sackson’s Bazaar seems pretty apparent. I’ve noticed that many of the 3M games have very definite predecessors (Yacht Race->Regatta and Formula I->Speed Circuit), now I wonder if we’ll find an Acquire precursor. Posted by Frank Branham on Jul 24, 2008 at 02:05 PM | #

"At a table filled with gamers, the luck factor becomes more important because players recognize how to win faster. “ Do you think this fact will kill this edition for gamers (speaking about those who typically enjoy dice games, like myself)?  Does it just play out too fast to make any of the decisions feel even minorly tough or worthwhile? Posted by Anthony Rubbo on Jul 24, 2008 at 02:13 PM | #

Interesting idea, Frank! I hadn’t thought of Bazaar while playing Have You Herd?, but I suppose the link might be there. Bazaar shines over this game as the players have a series of shifting goals and being beat by someone else for one goal doesn’t spell the end of the game for you. Even better, your holdings can be traded multiple ways so you don’t have a single linear path to follow. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 24, 2008 at 02:14 PM | #

Anthony, not all of the gamers sussed out the path I detailed above since they made trades in the late game that didn’t push them toward victory. Once you do notice, though, you’re mostly waiting for the right die rolls, and only bad rolls – a wolf or someone else’s skunk – can slow you down. The game lasts only ten minutes, even with four players, and you’re not making many decisions, meaningful or otherwise, over that time because it takes several rolls before you can trade for anything, much less enact a plan. That said, the game is only $13, so you can always try it, then pass it on to others if it doesn’t suit you. (I had two people ask to buy my review copy in less than two hours.) Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 24, 2008 at 02:25 PM | #

Eric, the translated rules for Super Farmer are listed on the Geek under the entry for that game and reveal quite a few differences between the original game and Have You Herd?.  In HYH, do animals other than the ones you roll breed?  They don’t in Super Farmer, which would be a huge difference if that’s the case. Frank, Sackson was quite the game historian, but who knows if he knew about what was probably a very obscure game back in ‘67?  Bazaar is in many ways the prototypical Sackson design--it fits his engineer’s mind perfectly, just like many of Knizia’s games are clearly the product of a mathematician’s mind. Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 24, 2008 at 03:16 PM | #

Larry, for breeding you “look at the top die faces and all your animal holdings,” as noted in the review. Considering only the die faces and the animals that match them would really scale down the animal production. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 24, 2008 at 03:20 PM | #

Yes, but the rules translation gives examples which seems to indicate that only the dice generate breeding.  Maybe it’s a faulty translation. Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 24, 2008 at 04:01 PM | #

SuperFarmer rules translation is mine… but I think it is intact although for sure it is not too good English :) The dice generate breeding. In original SuperFarmer only the die faces and the animals that match spawn new stock. For each full pair a player has rolled on dice she/he get new animal. Upon a roll a player adds to the count all the animals she/he has in stock and then counts the number of full pairs for the species that were rolled. Thus, no rabbits in stock but two on dice give one rabbit, one rabbit and one pig on dice and the same in stock gives +1 rabbit and +1 pig and so on. But if you have 1 rabbit, 1 pig and 2 sheep and roll rabbit and pig you get rabbit and pig, but no sheep! Moreover, there is no skunk in any Polish version of Super Farmer. There is also no “Force Trade” option on die. There are also some differences between Polish editions. As far as I know in the very first rules were closest to original ones—the most significant difference is lack of starting rabbit—so before you start breeding anything you had to get one successful roll of two rabbits. The Anniversary Edition introduces starting bunny and a few new rules making game a bit faster (these rulings are not included in translation available on BGG at the moment), not too mention visual overhaul and plastic figurines of dogs. Posted by Lukasz M. Pogoda on Jul 28, 2008 at 07:24 AM | #

Thanks for the notes, Lukasz! Sounds like lots of tiny changes, yet they would impact game play in big ways. The lack of player trading is one biggie since players are then mostly on their own. Breeding would be far slower since you can produce only two animals a turn, whereas in Have You Herd? the bunnies flow like water, so to speak. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 28, 2008 at 07:34 AM | #

< Back Home