You're sitting at the table, playing with your best friend, your row of cards is perfectly aligned (courtesy of BGA), one animal away from victory and then your best friend sends you a smile emoji... They play the Crab. Your carefully built row shuffles sideways, your Alliance crumbles, and just like that, you're starting over.

That's Collect! in a nutshell.

The setup couldn't be simpler: draw a card, place it in your row, use your animal's ability. You're racing to line up 4 identical animals, it is called an Alliance, and claim the Crown before anyone else does. Sounds easy but it’s not. And that's the whole point.

See, every animal in this deck has an agenda. The Crocodile quietly buries your best card. The Monkey swaps your prized piece for their junk. The Parrot gambles everything on a coin flip. And the Chameleon? That sneaky little wildcard is whatever it wants to be. Every turn feels like a tiny heist where you're never quite sure who's robbing whom.

Collect! balances the two things that make games memorable: the joy of a solid plan, and the chaos of watching it fall apart. You'll think three turns ahead. Someone will ruin it in one. You'll laugh, groan, and immediately deal again.

It has that rare quality where even losing feels fun, because you were this close, and next round, you're sure of it.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=collect

We’d like to thank Jérémy Ducret and Johannes Goupy, the game designers, as well as the folks at CMON for letting us add their game to the platform. We’d also like to thank Moof, for the BGA port.

This was your Monday release.

In the immortal words of every ruined strategy ever: “That escalated quickly.” Take care and play fair…