Jolly Thinkers: Pick a Seal

Jolly Thinkers sparks fun and creativity for the whole family.

Pick-a-Seal features the same gameplay as Pick-a-Polar Bear, but without the two variants of that game. An individual game supports 2-5 players, while combined the two games support up to eight players.

To set up the game, lay out 30 cards in a grid (49 cards with 6-8 players) and give one card face down to each player. Each card has five attributes, with each attribute having two states: large/small, with/without a raised arm, orange autumn/blue winter background, with/without goggles, and with/without canned fish. Someone shouts "Go!", then everyone looks at their card in hand. Players then start grabbing cards from the grid and stacking them in hand. The card grabbed must be identical to the top card in hand or differ from that top card in only one way. Thus, as you grab cards, the attributes of that top card will keep changing, forcing you to look for matches in new ways.

Once a player thinks he can't grab any more cards, he yells "Stop!" The round ends, and all players check their card stacks. If someone made a mistake when grabbing cards, that player keeps none of the cards gathered that round. If the player who stopped the round made no mistakes, he earns an extra card. If, however, he stopped the round when he could have collected more cards, then he loses all the cards he's collected during this round.

To set up for the next round, give each player a new face-down card and fill in the holes in the grid. When the deck runs out, complete that round, after which the game ends. Whoever has collected the most cards wins!