The Fox Experiment (Kickstarter Edition)

In 1958, Demitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut started an experiment on domestication. From a large group of foxes, they selected the ones that reacted to humans with more curiosity and less aggression. In each generation, they selected only the friendliest pups to become parents — hoping to recreate the process that originally led to domestication thousands of years ago. The experiment made stunning progress. Even though the foxes were chosen only for their friendliness, they soon started to get many of the physical traits that we associate with domesticated animals — like spots, floppy ears, and curly tails. As communication opened up, the foxes made major contributions to our understanding of how these traits are expressed. The experiment continues to this day.

In The Fox Experiment, you’ll breed your own domesticated foxes. In each round you’ll select a pair of fox parents who have certain traits. You’ll gain those specific trait dice, roll them, then try to move them around to make complete trait symbols which you’ll then mark off on your pup card. You’ll then gain trait tokens depending on how many traits you marked off which you’ll use to upgrade tracks on your personal player board.

At the end of the round, the previous generation of foxes will be cleared and all of the new pups will be moved to the kennel — thus becoming candidates to be chosen as parents in the next round. The game ends after 5 rounds and you’ll gain points for pleasing patrons (end of game scoring bonuses), studies completed (personal player objectives), if you ever won the friendliest fox award, upgrades on your personal player board, and extra tokens. The player with the most points wins!

—description from the publisher

COMPONENTS:
Cardboard:
1 Main board (41x32.7cm; double-sided 1-4/5-6 players)
4 Player mats (24.4x12.5cm; yellow, teal, orange)
4 Turn Order tokens (purple)
12 Point tokens (orange stars)
24 Supply tiles (white octagons)
28 Friendly tokens (green squares)
136 Trait tokens (round; 36x each purple Tails curl up, tan Ears stay floppy, teal Bark & whimper in reaction to humans, magenta Spots on foreheads)

Cardstock:
89 large cards (69x120mm):
36 Parent Fox cards (17 Females, 18 Males)
48 Blank Fox cards (12 per player color, dry erase)
4 Reference cards (double-sided)
1 Score card (dry erase)

42 regular cards (57x88mm):
24 Study cards
12 Solo AI Study cards
6 Patron cards

36 mini cards 62x40mm):
30 Selection cards
6 Solo AI Science cards

Wood (retail edition only):
40 Fox Meeples (10x per player color)
4 Gear tokens (1x per player color)

Metal (KS edition only):
4 Gears (1x per player color)

Plastic:
4 Dry Erase markers (black, with erasers)
4 Turn Order tokens (purple diamonds) - KS only
40 Foxes (with printing) - KS only
12 Point tokens (brown stars with orange printing) - KS only
28 Friendly tokens (lime green squares) - KS only
138 Trait tokens (round; 36x per Trait) - KS only

80 Dice (custom 6-sided acrylic dice - KS edition are marbled metallic):
16 Friendly dice (lime green)
16 Tails dice (purple)
16 Ears dice (tan)
16 Barking dice (teal)
16 Spots dice (magenta)

Rulebook (36 p.).

1-6

850029278726

PandaSaurus

60

2023

14+

2.5

Player vs Player

2023-12-04 13:37:10

~£73.68

2025-10-06

2023-12-04 13:37:10