Animals

As the first winner of the Spiel des Jahres award in 1979, Hare and Tortoise or the German Hase und Igel (for Hare and Hedgehog) will always be regarded as a classic game. It is a cunningly designed race to the finish in which your fuel (carrots) must practically run out (all but 10 carrots or fewer) at the moment you hit the finish line. You also have three lettuce cards you must spend during the course of the race. The farther you move, the more carrots you spend, and there are a variety of ways to gain or lose carrots as you go around the track. It's a very clever exercise in arithmetic which David Parlett has fashioned into an entertaining and unique perennial favorite.

There have several variations between the multiple prints of Hare & Tortoise by different publishers. Most variations come from methods of adding randomness that favor lagging player via cards, dice, or dice charts when landing on a Hare square.

Parlett Strategic Variant--The designer's preferred way of playing the Hare square is that "... you can land on them [Hare square], but must miss a turn. This would be the equivalent of the hare taking a nap, as in Aesop's fable. This is the rule I most favour and would prefer it to simply not landing on them at all..."

A racing game with a twist.

Players secretly get a horse (of a particular color) assigned before the game starts. The player with the horse in last place at the end of the game wins.

On your turn - sequence of play is decided by auction - you play a card that controls two different colored horese. When every player has put down cards, the horses move; but only horses with an odd number of cards on the table! If the number of open cards is even, the horse does not move.

But, true to the spirit of horse racing, each player has a chance to play a "dirty trick", including Change Horses. This can affect the game dramatically.

The best detailed description of the game is here.
{This is one of the few multiplayer games that plays equally well with only two}

From the Playroom Entertainment website:

"They're cute, they're fluffy, and they're on the loose! Be the first player to fence in Mother Sheep's flock in this exciting game of family fun. Each player must make the best use of the color-coded fences as they try to corral all five sheep on their list. But you must pay close attention, because in Mother Sheep, other players may need to fence in some of the same sheep as you. Will you fence in your sheep the fastest?"

Expanded by:

Mother Sheep: The Wolf

Once a card game it seems as though Fantasy Flight has nixed this idea completely for plastic penguins! Here's the games description from the game's page itself:

Can you find room for all your penguins on the iceberg?

Reiner Knizia's fast-paced and surprisingly devious new game is fun for the whole family! Stacking penguins in a pyramid may seem easy, but watch out! Penguins will only stand atop another penguin of their own color, and if you're not careful there will be nowhere left to stand!

For 2-6 players, ages 5 and up.

Similar to Pinguïn Party, which is played with cards.

From the manufacturer's website:

The busy beaver has built a beautiful dam out of logs, but his pesky neighbors keep trying to snatch them away while he's not looking. Be careful when skillfully removing the logs, as the pile might suddenly cave in! When he falls, you'll hear the beaver chattering his annoyance. Who'll be able to collect the most logs unnoticed?

Similar to:

Fire
Karamo