Hens: A Barnyard Puzzle of Colorful Chickens and Calm
Arrange a colorful barnyard of different chicken breeds to collect eggs and put on a feathery display with Hens.
Back to a little solo game that I haven’t brought back to my table in ages! Hens is a lovely puzzle of arranging chickens to collect eggs and ribbons. It moves quickly, and is one of those experiences that’s so easy to get back to. This might look very simple on the surface, yet I was excited to see all of the artwork and get back to keeping a barnyard in order!
Game Overview
Game Name: Hens
Publication Year: 2023
Designer: Giampaolo Razzino
Artist: Marco Salogni
Publisher: Little Rocket Games
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Chicken cards represent different breeds, and the goal is to figure out to place newly drawn cards. Scoring has a few other layers, including a rooster that only rewards victory points for being placed on a breed that isn’t the most common. Lots to think about, all within about 5 minutes!
First Play
March 23, 2023
Complexity
2
Latest Play
February 4, 2024
Expansions
1
Setup Time
Almost None
Lifetime Plays
16
Play Time
5 Minutes
High Score
40
Game Area
18" x 14"
Low Score
9
Cozy and Compact
Listen closely, and it almost feels like the hens have a few quiet clucks to share at the table! The play area remains very small, mostly with a grid of 3×4 or 4×3 cards.
Matching chickens have no placement restrictions, but it gets interesting with adding diversity! Ideally, a barnyard typically should have around 2-3 different breeds.
This is where the numbers come into play and create more of a puzzle, as they must count up or down when adjacent.
I got pretty lucky, and also planned my rooster placement quite well to score a pair of breeds, rather than just one!
A Fun Sort of Puzzle
With such a quick play time, random card order, and some variety in the bonus goal cards, it’s easy to play over and over again! I found myself trying out various strategies.
Now, the final assortment of cards ended up generally similar, which is a positive aspect of low variability.
This area will never spread out unexpectedly, and it’s easy to understand the mid-point: After 6 of 12 cards are placed, the rooster is then placed on a single breed.
Easy decision? If that breed turns out to be the most common, it won’t score twice. It’s an important choice!
Running Into Coops
In most of my plays, I planned well enough to keep all of the chicken cards face-up. Yet that isn’t going to happen every time… And that’s when chicken coops show up!
Try as I might, the cards I had to choose from weren’t working out for the upper left corner here. I was close, until I had to place a value 6 Sultan. At least that scored!
Each coop is worth negative victory points, and might also mean foregoing scoring a chicken card.
I was also trying to achieve a difficult goal of having all different chickens in a row. Wait… Switch that grid up!
Another Strategy
It was probably obvious to build my grid in the other configuration, but I still wasn’t able to get both of these goals completed at once. Required? Nope, yet a challenge!
Since I started to find it reasonably easy to earn a decent final score, I wanted to up the difficulty a little bit.
These goals involved different chickens in a single row, plus at least 2 breeds with 5+ chickens. Very tricky!
Note, too, that there are different rarities of chickens, and these can be swapped out during setup to increase the visual variety between plays. Lots of possibilities!
Understanding Why Simple Games are Good
How many seemingly simple solo games do I own? So many! It might be an obvious choice to pare these down and just stick with my favorites… Yet I’m learning a lot about how emotions and feelings affect how I perceive a game. There’s a detailed post about that coming up when I have the full time to devote to it! But it’s been great to understand myself.
It might seem obvious that my favorite games are the ones with memorable, emotional moments. What about the rest? This one falls firmly into the group of solo games that likely won’t enter that favorite territory, yet I love it for the opposite reason: Limited emotions. Or, I should say, a balance. This kind of puzzle is just calming and relaxing.
Maybe I’m on my own here, but I’ve been fascinated by the idea of thinking about my collection in a very subjective way, without trying to assign scores and ratings to the way I look at games all the time. It’s also not only about positive emotions, either. Some of my favorites I can describe as frustrating or rage-worthy. Ha ha! Can’t wait to share more!
Session Overview
Play Number: 7-16
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Outcome: 34, 27, 27, 23, 19, 31, 30, 14, 40, 36 (7 W & 3 L)
Awesome! When everything worked out nicely, it was a great feeling to see all of the chickens properly arranged in the barnyard. I had a lot of fun completing this goal card and figuring out the best adjacencies. There were a couple of moments when I had to rely on drawing the right cards, yet it all worked out! Despite the simplicity, there is a lot more in the layers found here… Much like a good omelet? Ha ha! Definitely one I hope to play more consistently!
%
10 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
9
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
5
Quality
Components & Rules
10
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
9
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
2
+ Pros (Positives)
- Each breed features a unique illustration, and these can be swapped out during setup to add lots of visual variety.
- The play area never expands beyond a known space of 3×4 or 4×3 cards, which is very compact and easy to handle.
- Placing the rooster may seem trivial, yet the choice to make halfway through is vital with only partial information.
- Goal cards provide a bit of variety in determining the best way to arrange the barnyard, which can be quite tricky.
- Avoiding coops is a challenge in itself, and chicken card placement requires a bit of planning and good luck.
- Only part of the full deck is used during play, so it’s important to weigh the risks and understand breed rarities.
– Cons (Negatives)
- The rulebook is a little hard to comprehend with the way it’s written, although this gets better after a few plays.
- One of the goal cards isn’t solo-friendly, but this isn’t noted anywhere in the rules and must be remembered.
- Although there are scoring tiers, the puzzle is somewhat solvable so that victory points don’t feel like a challenge.
- Icons are in the middle of the cards, which breaks up the artwork and makes final counting slightly difficult.
Victory Conditions
Score 25+ Points
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 25 points.
Score at least 35 points.
Score at least 40 points.
Continue the Conversation
How have you fared with Hens? Do you have any memorable plays when all of the cards literally lined up perfectly? I’m looking forward to swapping in some different breeds for more variety and seeing what I can do with all of the goal cards. This one is surprisingly interesting and gives me a very calming vibe… Chickens are the best gaming animals!
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