Haba Animal Upon Animal

by Haba

Product Features

• AKA: Tier auf Tier
• Age range: 4 and up / Number of players: 2 to 4 / Play time: 15
• Manufacturer: Haba USA
• 29 wooden animals, 1 die with symbols, instructions (German, English, French, Dutch)

Product Details

• Item Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B001IM4CSU
• Item model number: 3678
• Manufacturer recommended age: 4 years and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,890 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
  • #12 in Toys & Games > Games > Stacking Games
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

Product Description

A wobbly stacking game for 2 to 4 players! The animals want to show how good they are at making tall pyramids! They must be skillfully careful! Included are 29 wooden animals, 1 die with symbols and set of game instructions. Made in Germany.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Simple Balance Game, March 1, 2009

By 

T. Goodmanson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Haba Animal Upon Animal (Toy)

We ordered Animal Upon Animal (Tier auf Tier) for our 4 year old's Christmas present. It seemed like a solid dexterity game and we wanted him to work on his hand skills.

From the moment he opened the box and picked up the chunky wooden animals he has loved this game. He pulls it out at any opportunity.

Animal Upon Animal is a simple game, and other than 2 symbols on the die (the question mark and the hand, neither of which seemed immediately obvious for us and we had to check the rule book for several plays before we learned what they meant) the rules are quickly understood by all players. Players roll the die and either balance 1 animal, 2 animals, give an animal to another player to place, allow other players to chose the animal they place, or place an animal to the front or rear of the alligator.

The pieces are chunky and well-made (although I think detailing on 2 sides instead of just 1 would be better). Children can easily handle them. They also have bumps and curves which make placement interesting for older players (matching the snake humps or the bristles of the hedgehogs, curving the beak of a toucan around the leg of another animal).

Play continues and often the pile falls. One thing I like about this game is that you only keep 2 of the fallen animals no matter how many fall. This encourages a fun game where younger players don't feel beaten down and where older ones feel free to experiment.

This can even be fun as a solo venture, seeing how many pieces you can add to the tower of animals. We also added a rule ourselves to make a more even game when adults and young children are playing. The adults simply don't allow themselves easy moves like placing an animal in front of or behind the alligator or handing off pieces for a younger player to place.

Perhaps not a game for adults or older children, but a very fun dexterity game for young children. Easy to set up on their own (unlike Break the Ice or Jenga) and encouraging fast play.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, Quality, Aesthetically-Appealing Balancing Game, December 22, 2009

By 

goonius (a room in a house on a street in a city just like any other.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Haba Animal Upon Animal (Toy)

We bought three Haba games for our four-year old this Christmas; this one, Socken Zochen, and Zitternix. This is my favorite, and my two-year old is dangerously crazy about the pieces, but my four year old says that although she likes this game it's not as cool as Socken Zochen.

The game consists of 7 different small wooden animals. There are four sets of animals for a total of 28 pieces plus a die and a wooden alligator that forms the base of the stack. They are all quite small, something I realized before ordering, but it really is hard to get the idea of size from the picture, so here are the measurements:

The die, which is larger than standard dice is a .75" square.
Aligator: 4" x 1"
Penguins: 1.25" x .75"
Frilled Lizards: 1.25" x 1"
Hedgehogs: 1.3" x 1.2"
Snakes: 2.8" x .4"
Toucans: 1.4" x 1.25"
Sheep: 1.75" x 1.4"
Monkeys: 1.75" x 1"

The gameplay is as follows:

Seven animals per player, for up to four players. Each players receives one of each kind of animal.

First player rolls the die which has a number of options: A single dot commands you place one animal of your choice, a double dot is two animals of your choice, a crocodile image means you add to the base of the stack, a hand means you give another player your piece to stack (thus meaning that other player will incur the penalty if they knock the tower down), and a '?' which means another player chooses which piece you have to stack next, which means they can of course do you in by choosing a difficult piece, like the sheep who is larger, heavier, and has less grippy edges.

Of course, he who brings down the whole pile is the loser. The winner is the one who uses all their pieces without bringing about animal catastrophe, and if you just knock a couple of pieces down, they just go back in your pile, setting you behind a bit in your mission.

I haven't had the opportunity to attempt to pile the animals on my own (although I'm dying to), but because of that silky-smooth Haba finish and the range of shapes, this game proves to be a bit more difficult than you might imagine. The smallness of the pieces adds to that difficulty, as well. And of course the die adds an unpredictability that ups the challenge as well.

I think this is a great game. The pieces are endlessly appealing, and a very open-ended plaything, as my two year old demonstrated when she dubbed the monkeys 'howler monkeys' and continued to generally disregard most of her other presents to tote these four monkeys around in her new Uncle Goose wagon, and put them to 'bed' on her new Uncle Goose blocks. The monkeys watched her eat lunch, and she would have taken them to bed, but as these pieces are really quite small and a definite choking hazard. They are absolutely a high supervision item with a child under three, or more of an item to keep on a high shelf.

While this game could easily be replicated without actually purchasing it (my kids already stack their animal figurines) the structure of having an actual game to play on this premise is extremely fun. It's a refreshing change in pace for preschool games. So many rely on the *yawn* Candyland luck and chance, roll the die and move forward, boring, boring boring. I like a game that requires skill and planning, and maybe just a touch of luck to mix things up, and this game does all of the above.

I love that this game is made in Germany.

I would highly recommend it to preschoolers well past the mouthing stage; with my only caveat being you might want to hold off if you have younger (below age 3) children, as the appeal is too great and pieces definitely too small.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars enjoyable family game, February 2, 2009

By 

R. Laurencio "God is good" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:2.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Haba Animal Upon Animal (Toy)

As a whole this is a very cute and enjoyable game. My boys are 4 and 2 1/2 and they have easily grasped the point of the game. The only negative thing I can say about the game is that the animal pieces are alot smaller than I thought they would be...but other than that, it's a fun little game that doesn't last very long and is challenging enough to be fun!