We’ve all seen the bear memes recently, and while they’ve opened up dialogues about a tricky subject, they have also been the perfect opportunity for people who think bears are great to share their appreciation for ursidae everywhere. We’ve put together a list of five fantastic bear-themed board and card games, all of which have options for two players.
1. The Bears and the Bees (Grandpa Beck’s Games)
What do bears like best? Honey, of course! In The Bears and the Bees, you try to build a hive with the most honey before a hungry bear can break in and eat it all. The queen bee tile starts in the middle and all players have a hand of tiles that they try to match to the tiles already in the hive. The first player to empty their hand wins the round, but let’s face it, the real reward is the happy face of a bear who just got a paw-ful of honey. The Bears and the Bees is a compact little game that is easy to throw into a bag to take to a social gathering.
2. Bearicades (9th Level Games)
Combining bear-based gameplay with a literal eco-warrior message, Bearicades is a gloriously chaotic card game in which players build their own “bearicades” to repel the dastardly lumberjacks who want to deforest their home. Woodland creatures from mice to cougars team up with the bears as the evil Lumberco sends in chainsaw-wielding lumberjacks with dynamite and bulldozers, but things escalate as the forest animals turn the tools of eco-disaster on the corporation itself.
3. BarBEARian: Battlegrounds (Greenbrier Games)
A mashup of a dice battler and worker placement with strong resource management elements, BarBEARian: Battlegrounds is an excellent little tactical game. You manage your own village of mighty bear warriors who fight other bear tribes for fun and profit. Each round, you send your bear warriors to brawl with other players’ forces, gather resources or hire mercenaries and build up your village. It’s a little bit more cut-throat than the other games on this list, with more direct player vs player combat, but the cartoonish artwork makes it feel silly and fun. The art for the villages is particularly wonderful: a lot of love has been put into designing these bear villages around the different biomes they’re set in.
Check out the expansion for BarBEARians, Candy Horde, which introduces a horde of mindless Zombears who have been mutated by candy and a bunch of Heroes you can recruit to your cause.
4. Bärenpark (Lookout Games)
From the designer of the popular and cute Sushi Go, Bärenpark is a delightful and strategic board game of zoo design in which players lay out polyominoes (like dominoes, but with different configurations of squares) to create the best habitats for their bear-themed zoo. You can focus on one kind of bear, from pandas to polar bears, or you can try and create the most varied bear park possible. Objectives shape your gameplay so you always have a guide for where to direct your efforts. This gently brain-teasing game is wonderful for family gatherings, and as an added bonus, you get to claim bear statues as part of your victory conditions.
See also the excellent expansion for Bärenpark, The Bad News Bears, which adds grizzly bears and monorails as optional modules for the base game.
5. Takenoko (Bombyx, Matagot)
A thoroughly delightful game, Takenoko is deservedly popular for its gentle gameplay and mischievous garden-ruining panda. When the Emperor of China sends the Emperor of Japan a panda as a symbol of friendship, the put-upon royal gardener must tend to the Emperor’s bamboo garden while wrangling a rampaging panda. Players must strategically manage their bamboo patches with irrigation channels to ensure they grow exactly the right amount and type of bamboo, while also juggling the panda’s desire to eat certain colors of bamboo. Takenoko is strategically deep but also accessible. The pieces (such as the stacking wooden sections of bamboo) just add to the tactile appeal of this lovely game.
Keep an eye out for the added chaos of the expansion, Takenoko Chibis, adding a female panda and tiny baby pandas, with extra tiles, objective cards and variant rules.
