Draft the Perfect Spider Dance in 8-Legged Peacock

Woo your spider lady loves with the perfect spidery dance moves in this unique card drafting game.

Published by Brexwerx Games, 8-Legged Peacock is a 15-45 minute game, designed for 2-6 players.

Gameplay

The dance move cards are shuffled and placed into four roughly even piles. One card from each pile is drawn and placed below it so that the dance move display is created from the top card of each pile, and one card below each one.

Next, all the female cards are shuffled and one for each player, plus one, is dealt out to the first player. He selects one and passes the rest to the next player, who also drafts one and passes the rest, and so on, until everyone has selected one, and the final card is discarded.

Players then take turns drafting a single card from the dance move display. Cards are double-sided, but the side that was drafted must be used. If a player drafts a card from the lower row, a new card is drawn from its corresponding pile to replace it.

Once all players have eight cards, the round ends. A player’s female spider card determines which dance moves score what number of points, but those cards only score points for a player if they are one of the two colors shown on the female spider card. At the end of a round, if a player has all the dance moves shown on his spider card in a single matching color, he takes that color's mate token.

At the end of the round, all cards are returned to their respective decks, and setup is completed again, with players drafting new female spider cards. The game is played over 4-8 rounds, depending on the preferred length. At the end of the game, players earn bonus points based on the number of mate tokens they have and for also completing sets of all the colors. The player with the most points wins.

8-Legged Peacock (back side of box)

Review

8-Legged Peacock is a fun, light drafting game. It’s pretty easy to learn and get the game on the table and playing. Some move cards will be worth more points, so it’s a fun balance to choose between going after move cards worth more points, or to work towards claiming the mate tokens.

The goal and what cards you want are simple enough to grasp that this can be a good family game, although the scoring can get a little bogged down, so some assistance might be required there, depending on the age of the children playing.

This game has a very unique theme, and it's definitely not going to work for someone with arachnophobia. Some improvement could be made on the iconography used for the cards, as we found it initially confusing.

In addition, there’s nothing built into the game to really adjust for player count. The game works best with more players. At two players, you’re unlikely to be competing as much for the same cards, as there are so many cards in the display.

8-Legged Peacock is a flawed game, but we still had a good time with it, especially when we played with a larger group. It’s fun, it’s got a refreshingly different theme, and is a good fit for families.

Pros: Good at higher player counts, theme feels different

Cons: Some of the iconography on the cards is confusing, doesn’t work as well at lower player counts

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.