It’s time to Squirrel or Die!

This absurd memory game will put you in the shoes of a squirrel as the impending chill of Winter approaches. It’s up to you to hoard goodies for yourself and hide traps for your opponents—the only trick is remembering what you buried where…

Our tale begins in Autumn.

• Autumn •
Time to hide stuff! On your turn, you’ll do two things:

• Drop something (literally, as a nut falls from a tree). Take a card from the stack and drop it face-up on the table.
• Swap something: Exchange a face-up card from the board with a secret card from your hand. This face-down card will remain buried there until Winter arrives.

Eventually, you will run out of cards on your stack. When this happens, you have reached late Autumn, and you’ll skip the “Drop Something” step of your turns.

And when Autumn finally ends, you will have a 5×5 grid of, well, hidden stuff. Time to try and survive the harsh Winter.

• Winter •
I hope you remember what you hid, and where, because it’s time to dive back into our buried squirrel hoards!

We will now take turns flipping over cards, hoping to find food rather than well…

• Poison: Yep, definitely poison. That means death, but luckily, squirrels have 3 lives!
• The Cat: Also death, that’s life #2.
• The Confused Cat: Tries to take a bite out of you, but somehow manages to take it out of another squirrel of your choice instead.
• Finding Love: Love is so very rewarding that you gain an extra life!
• Plastic Explosive: Yikes. That’s yet another life thrown down the metaphorical squirrel toilet.
• Food: AMAZING JOB. YOU FOUND FOOD. You get the best gift a squirrel could ask for—nothing happens! Hooray!

At the end of the game, the squirrel who survives is indeed the survivor! Ready for another round of…

Squirrel or Die?