Buteo

A magnetic dexterity game for children. Theme: The common buzzards are very excited: Soon their young are going to hatch and the parents will be busy feeding them. Who'll manage to raise their young first? How it is played: The board shows 12 nests. The players start in the first nest and try to reach the last nest as fast as possible. Movement is determined via 7 action tokens. These are placed in a circle in the middle of the board. Only three of them are placed face up at any time. The tokens show 1-3 mice (= move the corresponding number of spaces), a fleeing mouse (= player does not move his/her bird this turn), a cat (= player turns over the three face-up tokens and shuffles them with the others, then three new tokens are placed face up), a buzzard (= player doesn't move his/her bird but gains an additional turn), or two birds with an arrow (= player exchanges position with the leading player). Which of the three face-up action tokens affects the active player is determined as follows: At one end of the board, there is a wooden peg. On this peg sits Buteo, a wooden buzzard figure. Over the board, there is a wooden scaffold, from which hangs a cord with a wooden ball attached at the end. The active player tries to hit Buteo by swinging the wooden ball towards him. If he/she is successful, Buteo attaches to the ball with the help of magnets. Then he flies a round (because the cord keeps swinging), until he finally stops over one of the tokens (which are also magnetic). Then the action specified by that token takes place, the token is turned face down, a new token is turned face up and then it is the next player's turn. The player who reaches the final nest first wins the game.