My sambo and I have a thing for tiny board games and really love the design of Oink games. We recently bought In a Grove but weren’t quite satisfied with the rules. Unlike with The Pyramid’s Deadline, a case where e decided to improve the rules, in this case we decided to re-invent the game all over again, together with our friend Cornelia.

Enjoy!

Players Duration Age Politically correct
3-7 10-∞ 9+ not very

Requirements

The original In a Grove set, or a combination of Poker cards and pen and paper:

  Original set Poker cards Pen and paper
Mujeres (women) numbered person tiles ♠ cards from 2 to 8, with the 5 being replaced with the ♥ one  
Maniquíes (mannequins) X person tiles both red aces  
First player token (optional) first on the scene marker    
Molestia (annoyance) unseen marker a joker  
MMM tokens detective chips 5 K and J cards of any seed, ideally with a mustache  
Score tracker detective chips   a handwritten table

Game objective

Each player is a mujer, whose goal is to be the first one to obtain the favour of all five Mustached Mexican Men: Alberto, Bernardo, Carlos, David and Enrique. However, if two or more mujeres achieve this simultaneously, they have to start over again.

Setup

The game is played in turns, clockwise.

Decide which player should start the first round, for example by spinning the first player token. The first player gets a maniquí; the second player gets the other maniquí and the molestia.

Deal one mujer face-down to each player, ignoring the remaining ones (do not reveal them).

How to play

At each round, the objective is to obtain the favor of one MMM by placing you mujer in a winning pile - one of the longest ones.

When it is their turn, each player either creates a new pile or places their mujer on an existing pile. Starting from the second player, after creating or growing a pile, each player can place or move the molestia on the top or on the bottom of a pile. The pile cannot grow in that direction.

Creating new pile

Usually, piles are initiated with a MMM token, a maniquí, a mujer. When a player does so, they choose the MMM they are competing for and place the corresponding token on the table on top of the maniquí (if you are playing with cards, keep in mind that the card representing the MMM token only acts as a marker and as such is not part of the pile). They then decide what the value of the maniquí will be (either 1 or 9) and place the mujer in the pile so that is in ascending order.

The only exception to this is initialization with a 5 (a colored person tile if you have the original set or a red card if you’re playing with Poker cards), which requires an MMM token but not a maniquí. In this case, the MMM token is placed directly on the mujer.

If a player who has a maniquí decides not to use it, they to have to hand it over to the next player.

Growing piles

In order to grow a pile, cards can be placed either on the top or on the bottom of an existing one, provided that they preserve its numerical, ascending order. Beteween two subsequent cards there can be a gap. Remember, however, that a pile cannot grow in the direction of a molestia.

End of the round

A round ends when the last mujer has been placed. At this point, players with mujeres on a winning pile obtain the favour of an MMM, thus scoring a point (with the original set, they get a detective chip, while with pen and paper the corresponding letter is added to the player’s score tracker). Remember that the winning piles are the longest ones.

End of the game

The game ends when, at the end of a round, a player is the only one to have obtained the favor of all MMMs. If more than one player have achieve that, they empty their score trackers and the game continues.