All Aboard!

About this board game

All Aboard! is a fast card game for 2–5 players, ages 7 and up, with games lasting about 20 minutes. Guide a gang of animals onto boats, but watch their capacity carefully: an overloaded boat can sink and send every animal aboard to the discard pile.

Each player begins with a set of 12 cards, featuring the mouse, peacock, fox, octopus, monkey, sloth, elk, zebra, giraffe, lion, bear, and elephant. The game lasts four rounds, and every round is divided into boarding the boats and setting sail.

• On the first turn, place an animal face up in any boat, with no more than three animals in each.
• On the second turn, place another animal face down in an available boat.
• On the third turn, add a final animal face up to an available boat.

When the boats set sail, the face-down cards are revealed. Two animals of the same species fall in love and earn points, while three of the same species fight and cause the boat to sink. The animals then activate their individual effects before the total weight aboard each boat is checked against its capacity.

Boats that stay within their limits successfully sail away, and their animals are placed in each player’s saved-animal pile to score at the end of the game. Animals on a sunken boat are discarded instead. With each creature bringing its own power, the timing of every card matters, and opponents’ plays can create unexpected situations.

Designed by Paco Yáñez and illustrated by Monsuros, All Aboard! combines accessible rules with tense decisions and playful chaos. Can you save the most animals before the boats sink?