Sitting Ducks Gallery

Sitting Ducks Gallery - it's like a carnival game. You know, the one where you shoot ducks. Plastic ducks. Floating in a row. Very much like that. Except there's no gun. And the ducks are printed on cards. And they don't move unless you move them yourself. Which, depending on what card you pick, you sometimes get to do. Other than those minor changes, it's really exactly like a shooting at those floating ducks in a carnival game. Except you're shooting at each other's ducks. And they're not exactly floating.

Playroom Entertainment's "Sitting Ducks Gallery" is at least as fun as the "real thing," and a lot funnier. A "quacky card game" by Keith Meyers, Sitting Ducks Gallery features two sets of cards, a set of 6 targets, and a folding board (the gallery). One set of cards (the deck with the yellow back) is full of ducks (six different colors - one for each player) and water (drawings thereof). The other deck (red-backed) is used to target and shoot and move the ducks, and to, well, duck, so to speak. Targeting is separate from shooting, naturally, which adds a definite strategic tang to the tension.

The game (for 3-6 players, ages 10 and older, with 20-30 minutes to devote to something significantly fun) is humorously illustrated and well-made. We loved the look and feel of the cards and were taken by the cleverness of the simulated shooting gallery. Each player selects a duck color. There are six ducks of each color. The remaining ducks are removed from play. There are 41 cards in the Duck Deck. The other 5 cards are water. The Duck Deck (I love saying that) is shuffled, stacked, and placed on the right side of the shooting gallery board. The top six cards from the DD are then placed on the board, one in each space. There are 52 cards in the Action Deck. Actions include things like: shoot and misfire, double barrel (targeting two adjacent ducks), bump left and right (moving the target marker), various cards that allow you to move the ducks, and two defensive cards: "duck and cover" and "bottoms up." Each player draws a hand of 3 cards. As the game progresses (depending on the action cards played), the ducks move off the board and back into the bottom of the deck - very much like the circulating ducks in a shooting gallery.

It's most definitely a competitive game. Basically, you're trying to shoot everyone else's ducks, hoping, in the mean time, to duck everyone else's shots. One of the things we appreciated most about the game was that even if all your ducks get shot, you still get to stay in the game, shooting merrily away at your opponents until only one player has any ducks left.

Despite all the different kinds of Action Cards, game play continues to be elegant, enjoyable, and essentially ducky. It is easy to learn, and remains fun to the very end. Major FUN.