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Game Info
Year
2025
Collection
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Description
Will you play your Ducks to your Row or add them to the pond to increase the value for all players. Can you swing the game in your favour, through triggering your ducks’ special abilities when you play them to your row?
Each round sees players balancing their hand of duck cards. Choosing to play to the shared pond to increase the value of ducks in everyone’s row. Or playing to your row, enabling you to trigger your ducks’ special abilities.
Timing can make all the difference when triggering a duck’s special power.
Each of the six families of duck has their own game changing abilities.
• Splash - Scare off a duck from the pond.
• Egg - Draw an extra card from the draw pile.
• Nest - Rehome a duck from your duck house.
• Head - Select up to two cards from your hand and swap them
with another player.
• Feather - Add a card to your hand from someone else’s duck
house or the discard pile.
• Foot - Draw a card from the persuasion deck to secretly
change the value of a column in the pond.
Everyone plays simultaneously face down indicating row or pond using their location selection card. Once everyone reveals their chosen card the real test starts, each player now plays their card from lowest value to highest value. Will two ducks clash, leaving one or more homeless? Will you trigger your duck’s ability with perfect timing to take full advantage of their power?
If you balance your hand of cards well, you'll be sure to ruffle the feathers of other players and come out on top in the pecking order.
Played over several hands, the winner will be the first player to 40 points. The variety of suits allows game play from two to eight players, and game play lasts between 20 to 40 minutes.
-description from publisher
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Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 3
This page: 3
Sentiment:
pos 2 ·
mix 0 ·
neu 1 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–3 of 3
Video 4wmzOSibprw
Chairman of the Board Top List at 2:40 sentiment: positive
video_pk 84886 · mention_pk 342720
Click to watch at 2:40 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Well-boiled down formula staying true to a simple structure.
- Enjoyable and has a lot of potential.
- Reaches a wide audience; deduction fans will enjoy the challenge, and casual players can wing it.
- Looks lovely, is fast, and fits a niche.
- Carves out its own place by being sillier and faster.
- Works in the game's favor to go off a feel rather than concrete evidence at times.
Cons
- End game triggering mechanism was a little bit off.
- Rounds ended abruptly sometimes.
- Secret cards can provide too much concrete information, making deduction a no-brainer.
- Some small details could have been ironed over.
Thematic elements
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action card drafting — Players play action cards to gain information about the duck order.
- Deduction — Players use clues to deduce the correct order of duck cards.
- Party Game — Described as a hybrid deduction party game.
- Set Collection — Players try to replicate the conductor's display of ducks by placing their ducks in the same order, aiming for the longest uninterrupted run.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- So, automatically I was starting off on a kind of a handicap really and it was very difficult for me to fight my way through those dice to try and build those patterns.
- But there is a nice degree of um of kind of logical reasoning and a deduction going on here.
- The game is is very enjoyable.
- It looks lovely. It's fast.
- This is pretty standard fair. There's a lot of games out there like this where you're just collecting your currency and then cashing them in to um against contracts to get you points.
- I loved how simple the turn system in this game is.
- This game kept it so clean and easy to understand, but kept the deduction part of the game really juicy.
- This is definitely one of the best ones that I've played.
- Be aware this game is barely a board game, although it is a game you play on a board.
- So think of it more of a storytelling game, more of a role-playing adjacent game than a traditional, you know, board game where you're making tons of decisions. More of a choose your own adventure if you want to put it that way.
- So, you know, the game is a mish mash of random encounters, but the stories you can tell over the course of the game are really enjoyable.
- So for me, this is almost like a time piece game that I'll keep for the rest of my life.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video Yb4HtXH7vrE
Brains On Games Review at 0:00 sentiment: positive
video_pk 42358 · mention_pk 349187
Click to watch at 0:00 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Accessible and quick to teach; suitable for families and mixed groups
- Whimsical duck artwork and non-standard square cards add charm
- Deep enough to be surprisingly strategic, with meaningful choices each turn
- Replayability through many suit combinations and deck-building variations
- Tight interaction: opponents’ actions can significantly shape your options
Cons
- Prototype is in flux; rules and balance are still being tweaked
- Balance between suits and discards could limit viability if not refined
- Non-standard card shapes/sizes may be awkward for some players
- Drawing from the orange deck and hidden-card reveal can create confusion during playtesting
Thematic elements
- ducks and pond/row management with market-like card manipulation
- tabletop prototype discussion during crowdfunding phase; casual play in home environments
- light, whimsical, strategic
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- balance and deck construction — With multiple suits available, players seek a balance in suits to maximize scoring potential while avoiding dead cards in their row or pond
- blockade and legality rules — Playing a card can block other players from placing certain values into their pond or row; if a smaller value is placed before a larger value, higher-value plays may become illegal
- Deck Building — With multiple suits available, players seek a balance in suits to maximize scoring potential while avoiding dead cards in their row or pond
- end-of-round calculation and scoring — After a round ends when a player runs out of cards, you multiply the pond/row values by counts in your row and subtract cards housed in the duck house; first to reach the target score ends the game
- Memory — Players infer opponents' possible holdings by observing revealed cards and face-down choices to anticipate scoring opportunities
- Memory and deduction — Players infer opponents' possible holdings by observing revealed cards and face-down choices to anticipate scoring opportunities
- orange deck draw露 — Playing an orange card lets you draw a card that is hidden from other players and placed onto a pond card to modify its value; this may alter end-of-round scoring
- row/pond placement with directional rules — Cards can be played to your picnic table (row) or to the pond (middle); pond cards must descend while row cards ascend, creating cognitive constraints
- Simultaneous action selection — Players secretly choose a card to play, then reveal; the lowest value goes first and affects the order of play within a suit
- Simultaneous Actions — Players secretly choose a card to play, then reveal; the lowest value goes first and affects the order of play within a suit
- suit-based abilities — Each suit has a special ability that triggers when a card of that suit is played; one, the orange suit, ties into a central orange deck and card-drawing mechanic
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- Ducks in a Row is a clever card land
- It's a light game
- surprisingly strategic
- The rules were changing
- I think this is final thoughts. This is more like first impressions
- There is replayability because there are so many suits and you can mix and match different ones
- This is a game for between two and six players
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video fKMEkpHOgmY
Game Night Picks - Pair Of Dice Paradise Game Trivia at 18:36 sentiment: neutral
video_pk 41314 · mention_pk 349682
Click to watch at 18:36 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
neutral
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- pattern/collection — players collect or draft items themed around birds in a light strategy format.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- All viewer submitted all the time.
- We are nothing if not rules followers.
- We will each start with 10 chips. I say we could roll this d20 and let fate determine how much of our chips we wager.
- This is such a chaz way to play this game.
- I rolled a four, everyone. A big four.
- Habitatus. Habitats. It was the annoy hedgehog.
- Falcon's Perch. You know, it just feels right.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Transcript Navigation
Showing 1–3 of 3