After a long dark winter, the sun is shining and it's party time for the penguins, who celebrate by fishing. To look over the waters more easily, the penguins build high pyramids. The more penguins you can fit in the pyramid, the better — but it's not that easy.
In Penguin Party, players collectively build a pyramid of penguins, trying to empty their hands of cards along the way. The deck consists of 36 penguin cards: 8 green and 7 each of red, blue, yellow, and purple. Deal the deck out as evenly as possible, with the final card in a five-player game starting as the first card in the base of the pyramid.
On a turn, you either play a card to the left or right of the base of the pyramid, which can be at most eight cards wide, or play a card on a higher level of the pyramid so long as it's supported by two penguins, at least one of which is the same color as the card being played. If you cannot play a card, discard your hand face down and take as many penalty markers as the number of cards you didn't play. If you empty your hand, you can return two penalty markers previously collected to the supply.
Play as many rounds as the number of players, with each player starting one of the rounds. Whoever has the fewest penalty markers at the end of the game wins. (With two players, deal each player 14 cards, remove the other cards from play without looking at them, and build a pyramid with a base only seven cards wide.)
Admin note: This game looks very similar to Penguin, but differs not only in components (being a card game while Penguin has 3D penguin tokens), but also in the number of colors and distribution. Penguin has four colors with nine pieces each, while this game has five colors with a distribution of 4x7 + 1x8.
- Light, approachable for families and newcomers
- Quick rounds, lots of interaction and banter
- Great color/puzzle flavor in a party context
- Can feel mean due to penalties and blocking
- May be too chaotic for serious gamers
- Color-matching, stacking/building, penguin-themed family play
- Penguin colony building a colorful pyramid
- Family party game with light humor and accessibility
- Scout
- Dino Fiesta
- Nana (revisions)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Color-matching pyramid building — Players place cards to extend a pyramid bottom row, matching color underneath and planning next moves.
- End-of-round elimination and scoring — When a player finishes their cards, or cannot play, rounds conclude and penalties accumulate.
- Flexible placement rules — Bottom row cards can be placed in different columns; top-row placements require valid support beneath.
- Penalty tokens for being unable to play — If you cannot place a card on your turn, you incur penalty points; multiple rounds determine the score.
- Rounds with clear start-player marker — The dealer/marker determines who starts each round; multiple rounds determine the winner.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's addictive; we could have played that forever.
- Alliance is a variant where you can mix house pods from three decks from the same set.
- This game feels quite mean.
- Jungo. Law of the Jungle.