Overview
Cardline: Animals is a card game where players try to correctly place animal cards in a growing line ordered by a chosen characteristic (size, weight, or lifespan). Each card shows an animal on its front side and its characteristics on the reverse. Players take turns placing cards, trying to be the first to get rid of all their cards.
Components
- 110 cards, each featuring:
- Front side: Animal name, artwork, and common name
- Characteristics side: Same info plus scientific name, family, extinction risk level, and three characteristics: average size, average weight, and average lifespan
Animal families represented: amphibians, arachnids, crustaceans, insects, mammals, sea mammals, mollusks, birds, fish, and reptiles.
Characteristic details:
- Average size: Measured in inches/feet, not including tail (except reptiles include tail; birds measured feet to head, not wingspan)
- Average weight: Given in ounces, pounds, or tons
- Average lifespan: Given in days, months, or years
Setup
- Players decide which characteristic to use for the game: size, weight, or lifespan.
- Deal 4 cards to each player, characteristics side hidden. Players do not look at the characteristics side. (More experienced players may deal more than 4 cards.)
- Place the remaining deck face down (characteristics side hidden) on the table.
- Flip the top card of the deck and place it in the middle of the table as the initial card, characteristics side up. This starts the line.
Turn Structure
Players take turns clockwise. On each turn, a player must attempt to place one of their cards into the correct position in the line based on the chosen characteristic.
- Choose and place a card: The player selects one of their cards and places it in the line where they believe it belongs relative to the other cards’ characteristic values. Cards with lower values go to the left; higher values go to the right.
- Reveal and verify: Flip the placed card to show its characteristics side. Check whether the value is correctly positioned relative to its neighbors in the line.
- Result:
- Correct placement: The card remains in the line, characteristics side up.
- Incorrect placement: The card is removed from the game (returned to the box). The player draws a new card from the deck and adds it to their hand, characteristics side hidden.
Actions
On your turn, you have exactly one action: place one card from your hand into the line.
- With only the initial card, you have two choices: left (lower) or right (higher).
- As more cards are correctly placed, the number of possible positions increases (between any two adjacent cards, or at either end of the line).
- The line is repositioned after each successful placement to maintain spacing between cards.
Scoring / Victory Conditions
The first player to correctly place their last card wins immediately.
Tie-breaking: If multiple players correctly place their last card during the same round, all other players are eliminated. The tied players each receive one new card from the deck and continue playing rounds until only one player correctly places their card.
Special Rules & Edge Cases
- Equal characteristic values: If a player must place a card with the same characteristic value as a card already in the line, the two cards are placed side by side with no concern about order between them.
- Scaling difficulty: Players may deal more than 4 cards per player for a more challenging game as they gain experience.
- No peeking: Players must never look at the characteristics side of their own cards.
Player Reference
| Step |
Action |
| 1 |
Choose a card from your hand |
| 2 |
Place it in the line where you think it belongs (lower values left, higher values right) |
| 3 |
Flip to reveal the characteristic value |
| 4a |
If correct: card stays in the line |
| 4b |
If incorrect: card goes to box, draw a new card from the deck |
| Win |
First player to correctly place their last card wins |