The Fox Experiment Review: Who Rules the Skulk?

[@boardgametotears]

National Geographic had a fascinating article on this over a decade ago. For those who are offended by the theme, the experiment is more humane than you might think. For those who are still offended by selective breeding, you probably shouldn't own pets or go to zoos either.

[@vctrsigma]

It was funded as a fox fur farm. They simply bred the least aggressive ones in each generation and documented the changes over time. So your feelings on fur farms could matter. They do still have the foxes and were selling them afaik in part to make up for funding shortfalls; it would probably be complicated to get figure out the import issues in addition to the high price for the fox itself. The foxes developed droppy ears and waggly tails like dogs (among other domestic dog traits like going into heat twice per year)

[@Gathanokos]

I read this experiment in a book called the survival of the friendliest a few years back, and when I heard this game coming out I was so hyped! I think the mechanics are quite fitting so I'm probably going to get it :D

[@Fettigator]

As someone who had 3 pet foxes growing up, I can say with a 💯 certainty that foxes can be your “friend” as much as dogs … they played inside the house, we took them for car rides, they will obey commands, sleep in your lap, and follow you around like a puppy

[@john-qz3fu]

Did they smell? I’ve heard foxes have a musk that can’t be reversed?

[@Fettigator]

@@john-qz3fuThey do have a musk-y smell but they are easily de-scented. Ours never really had much of a smell. The newer bred foxes are losing it like many dogs have lost scents/become non-allergenic as breeding has progressed over the many years

[@weirichjohn]

Well that's what I get for never being around an actual fox, but having watched documentaries. In it they were interviewing fox owners who said the foxes mostly ignored them unless it was dinner time or the foxes got spooked by something and were looking for protection. Perhaps it was just the "breed" that they had?

[@Fettigator]

@@weirichjohn They probably ignored them as much as the foxes did. Lol. If you don’t play with them/spend time with them, like a dog, then yea, I’m not surprised. Also, it’s important to get them as young as you can so that they learn to rely on you more, just like how we all get get puppies for pets & not usually 10 year old dogs.

[@weirichjohn]

Just to clarify, from my understanding the real life experiment was to breed docile traits, not friendly traits. They won't ever be your friend, but they won't ever bite you either. As Tom pointed out, wild foxes are basically little wolves.

[@BigYoshi826]

Not to mention their primary method of communication is urine.

[@jenaparsons]

Plus they’re stinky little guys- definitely wouldn’t want them as a house pet even if they are super cute.

[@Crumplebutt]

My friend has a domesticated white snow fox. She's not cat level of friendly but she will come to people she knows and want attention and loves to play fetch

[@estherpettigrew3042]

If they have a musky odor, does that mean that the friendly version is…. (Wait for it…) …stinkin’ cute? 😂

[@jenaparsons]

@@estherpettigrew3042 I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what that means lol

[@Kasper8421]

I am waiting on my Kickstarter version to be delivered to me!

[@vittorioboscaro]

Hello. Tom's microphone crackles every time he moves even slightly. This has only been happening in the last few weeks. Maybe there is something off with a new mic or something?

[@_p2bg]

Interesting and beautiful componentes! 👏🏼👏🏼

[@Drew_D]

How soon before we see a video for Top Ten Fox Board Games?

[@UnimatrixOne]

How high would you rate it with/for 2 Player?

[@dinahfromkabalor]

Much lower. Unfortunately, the rules for the automa are in a different place in the rulebook than the main rules, you need to reference both, and the player reference card doesn’t include the automa. There is a lot of flipping back-and-forth.

[@BluephsBlog]

My concern with this game was that it could lose it's charm after a few games. Glad to hear you played it a lot and enjoy it still.

[@BelleAim]

My Shiba Inu looks like a fox (but with a cute cinnamon roll tail). She's super loyal but has the worst bark (the shiba scream I believe it's been called). Thanks for the review!

[@adamlong9728]

Am I excited for this game? No. Do I think my girlfriend would be excited to play it of I got it? Yes. So that makes me want to get it.

[@GlennDeBlock]

We played this the first time and unlocked ALL the bonuses on all four our player boards. And all the end game scoring... and all the research scores... I mean wow. There's no tough choices in this game whatsoever. Also "a great fox"... well, it's either one that gives 5 dice or 6... I mean... the difference is close to nothing. Also soooo much clutter and tiny tidbits on the table. All these tiny trait tokens and these half green die tokens and then these black marker streaks everywhere... It's just... completely underwhelming. Oh last turn I got 17 dice and now I get 19... IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER THAT MUCH... A complete fail.

[@realjon4220]

Probably one of the most interesting/unique theme I've seen in a board game for a while but of course people have to take a crap on it on BGG and bombing score down because of the theme. Based on a very quick internet search, the theme is an actual event that happened (search 'The silver fox domestication experiment'). But nooooo gotta have everything squeaky clean, wholesome and boring nowadays 🙄

[@stevejakab274]

4:50 should be 3 pinks, I think. 1 per symbol, not per die.

[@brianl6151]

Now I am curious. Game has an ok rating on BGG but all three reviewers have it at an 8.5+.

[@PhasinG37]

I think a lot of the BGG rating is due to the Kickstarter and delivery difficulties it had/is still having. It's still not distributed yet, and has been pushed back a lot. That said, it looks to be close now.

[@jonl4883]

Last I checked, the game didn't have that many ratings (around 200) as not that many people own the game, yet. A lot of those ratings were from people who just didn't like the theme. They gave the game a 1, without having played it, just because of the theme. I'd almost disregard any BGG ratings at this point. Not enough people have actually played the game.

[@SmoothGummi]

The low ratings on BGG are because of two issues: 1. The Kickstarter campaign was a nightmare for many reasons. Shouldn’t affect the game score but it does for some people because it makes them feel like they are “sticking it to” Pandasaurus. 2. Some people act holier than thou about animal experiments and try to showcase their virtue with a score of 1

[@alexgregory1647]

Love the theme easily the best part it’s a 9 for me can’t wait to play again

[@Bada4ever]

So...what does the fox say?

[@dddmmm21]

This is the ONE game with the greatest amplitude between what I think and what most reviewers think... The game is beyond solitaire, it is multiplayer repellent because each player's turn is made of these multiple mini actions, flip a token, roll a dice, cross a box, draw a card, bla bla bla, none of each can be followed or audited by any other player, so you have no idea if people are cheating, making mistakes, but you dont care because you are doing your own mini things, and during that all you can think is "why isnt this an app I can just play by myself on the toilet? ".

[@harryofgo]

I can't imagine I would play a game with someone I would even entertain the idea they might cheat.

[@Poiuytrew.Q]

On the toilet?

[@dddmmm21]

@@harryofgo that is a nice dream

[@dddmmm21]

@@Poiuytrew.Q in the toilet… the game i mean

[@thecuriousboardgamer]

@@harryofgoAgreed. Literally the only person I play with that would intentionally cheat is my 7 year old son.

[@akmalfikri]

It has a feel like Genotype.

[@Drumox]

Some people really just watch the ratings part of the videos to see the numbers and make angry or sarcastic comments that people enjoy a game

[@topofthemuffintoyou5610]

Exactly, it's their opinion for goodness sake!

[@mazman9355]

I am also scientifically cute. 🤔

[@jasondunham5780]

National Treasure

[@TheSludgeMan]

If i think Wingspan is an utterly mediocre game what are the chances I'll also disagree about this?

[@S0nyb1ack]

I don't think your feelings about wingspan have to correlate to this game in any way. You might dislike both, like both, like one and dislike the other. I've tried the digital implementation of this game when the kickstarter was live and don't care about it at all, but wingspan for me is one of my favourite games of all time. The games have nothing in common, beside a nature theme, at least in my opinion. I didn't quite understand why mike even compared it to wingspan... Of course that is all just my opinion ;)

[@Fissi0nChips]

You definitely don't want a fox in your house. They are very easily excitable and pee all over everything.

[@DuGStp]

So the experiment failed? I don’t see very many foxes as pets.

[@sadekhanna]

We have dogs, why would you want to tame another wild animal? It was an experiment and like many others, should not be made common practice.

[@john-qz3fu]

I would love a domesticated fox

[@johncullen9436]

No, it didn't fail. It was a success. They did domesticate fox. But it wasn't specifically for a commercial purpose; i.e., breeding and selling domesticated fox. It was intended as an experiment to investigate domestication syndrome. After its initial success they went on to breed other species, exclusively mammals. And they also bread in the opposite direction, for aggression, successfully as well. These experiments were done in the Soviet Union. While these experiments are couched in terms of mere scientific curiosity, I am skeptical. What other mammalian species could they have been interested in applying these techniques to? Producing a docile, submissive "breed" of workers and an aggressive "breed" of warriors? And yes, in case you missed it, this is eugenics. (If you do not know what eugenics is, google it. It should give one pause.)

[@TheRoorkesy]

​@@johncullen9436by that standard, all selective breeding is eugenics. It's been happening in agriculture and domesticated animals for millennia, and could be argued that if we are to take these animals from their natural environments, we have a responsibility to nuture the features and traits best suited to living with people.

[@johncullen9436]

@@TheRoorkesy Not exactly. What had been going on for millennia was selecting crops and livestock that had whatever traits you wanted and replanting / rebreeding them. But it did not happen in a cultural vacuum. They would use mystical/magical procedures to ensure they got the results they wanted as well. I think of Jacob and his spotted sheep (Genesis 30:37); and, I'm sure, thousands of other by guess and by golly and by magical ways through out the world and through out history. And good for them. It got us to where we are today. They had no idea about genetics and how it all worked. Then along came the Enlightenment, Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, or more properly Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin, who, using Darwin's insights, coined the term eugenics and came up with the "science" of eugenics. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the Enlightenment, Mendel and Darwin, and others of course. For the first time we have a scientific methodology for producing and improving the livestock and crops we want. The vast majority of the crops and livestock we have today have been developed within the last 200 years. Now back to Mr. Galton. He and others thought, "Hmm, I wonder if this works on humans?" Actually, they said, "It will work on humans, let's do it." So eugenics is the attempted application of a scientific methodology of breeding to humans. It was quit a popular "science" in its day. I believe the last eugenics law was removed from the books in the US in the late 1960's or early 70's. But for our purposes let's look at the eugenics program in the Soviet Union. I won't get into the details, you can check out Filip Bardziński's writings on the subject. The gulags were the main eugenic tool employed to select the "stock" to breed "the new Soviet man" and to cull the dissidents. They were not meant to re-educate, nor to punish, nor to be used as a cheap source of slave labor, they could, of course, be used for all of these, but their true purpose was to select and to cull. The properly selected "compliant" stock would be released back into the general population to breed. Those with continued "non-compliant" behavior were worked to death or just killed. As eugenics was explicitly, and when not, implicitly the official policy of the Soviet Union, all Soviet genetic research was intrinsically connected to eugenics. I'm not sure you could draw a line between genetic research and eugenic research in the Soviet Union. The fox experiment to me in its totality, that is its continued, expanded and ongoing experiments smacks of it being an actual part of the eugenics program. A proof of concept experiment on animals that could later be applied to humans. But even if not, their eugenicist colleagues would definitely have had access to their work and would have implemented it in the gulags.

[@robynguppyart]

What does the Fox say!!!

[@Beammeup87]

Chris with a big miss...

[@joshjenson8111]

A beautiful cover, a beautiful game board But the game looks soooooooo boring and lackluster

[@nirszi]

I cannot find a theme that is a bigger turn off than this one.

[@namelessfire]

Another day, another bland, zero-interaction euro with cute animals getting a seal of excellence.

[@boycebulldog]

So, you’ve played it in full to make such a pronouncement, I’m sure? Because while I played a demo game at Gen Con 2022 and backed the Kickstarter, I’m reserving my own judgment until I’ve played a full game. Excited be these scores though.

[@johannesblank1552]

Maybe DT preferences in games don’t align with yours (?) Plenty of reviewers out there.

[@gabrielthornmusic]

Another stupid comment with zero value.

[@Wylie288]

Its very interactive. The only part about the game that's not interactive is the assembling dice.

[@aarondowning5791]

What a horrific theme.

[@baguafox]

The Fox Experiment has an extremely dark history and I am shocked that these designers who "like nature" chose this theme. If animal experimentation bothers you do not buy this game.

[@MrPorko2c]

It’s just a theme on a game. I played Memoir 44 last week but that doesn’t mean I was glorifying WW2. It’s also not like supporting this game is putting money into the pockets of people who abuse animals.

[@john-qz3fu]

How is this history dark?

[@johncullen9436]

@@john-qz3fu Well, for one thing they kept them in nasty little cages. All the art work in the game shows the fox free and cute. That's not the way it worked. At least not until they were domesticated. And, I believe that they "culled" the "rejects", although I might be wrong on that. It was in Siberia. They may have just let them go. There's a KZbin vid. on it somewhere. With actual footage of the facility. I watched it years ago. I knew a guy years ago who raised fox for pelts. His setup looked pretty much the same as the experimental facility.

[@justinkitton5492]

Agreed, the way these foxes were treated was terrible, they lived most of their lives in cages.

[@baguafox]

I suggest looking into it (I sincerely mean that). Most of the foxes were caged their entire lives, killed/sent off to fur factories@@john-qz3fu

[@michieltummers1303]

Horrible theme, okayish game imo

[@john-qz3fu]

Why is the theme horrible?

[@arnold2011]

Have you seen the movie “The Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3”?

[@john-qz3fu]

Nope