Some games haunt want lists for years, and Gulo Gulo is a prime example. Originally published in 2003 by Zoch Verlag, it went out of print and stayed there for a decade while used copies changed hands at a premium and forum threads asked the same question almost every year: is this actually worth tracking down? Pandasaurus Games is bringing it back on 21 August with all new art by Jennifer Meyer and a refreshed ruleset.
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Find events near youFor the uninitiated, Gulo Gulo is a dexterity game for 2 to 6 players, ages 5 and up, that plays in about 20 minutes. Gulo gulo is the Latin name for the wolverine, and you are a family of them trying to rescue Gulo Junior, who has been snatched by swamp vultures and stashed near their nest. The path to the rescue runs straight through it, past a pile of coloured eggs rigged with a very precarious alarm pole.
On your turn you pick a tile ahead of you on the path, and its colour tells you which egg you have to lift out of the nest. Manage it without knocking the pole, dislodging another egg, or resorting to a second hand, and your wolverine advances. Fumble it and you scurry backwards in shame. First to reach the Gulo Junior tile and steal the final purple egg wins.
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Start organising for freeThat 5 and up rating is not a rounding error, and Pandasaurus is leaning into it. The rules include a Kid Gulo variant for ages 5 to 7 where reaching the end of the path triggers the nest deck phase, and drawing the Gulo Junior tile wins you the game on the spot with no purple egg required. The new edition also tidies up the rules around backward movement and upgrades the components. Anyone who has watched a six-year-old with small fingers and nerves of steel clean out a table of adults will know why the low age rating is not a warning.
Asmodee UK lists it at an RRP of £39.99, which is proper board game money for 20 minutes of egg-pinching. Then again, this is a game people have spent a decade hunting on the second-hand market, so the queue will not be short. Time to warn the steadiest hands in your group.
Sources: Pandasaurus Games | Asmodee UK
