Out of the 3 we ordered this was the only one not for a birthday. It was easy to set up and the instructions were clear. My 5 year old loves it and can play it well and beats us. My 12 yr old enjoyed it until his little sister kept stopping him getting the high point elephants. Basically it comes with a jigsaw circle which is your watering hole. You put the animals in your hand down at the corresponding number and if you put 3 or more of the same animal down you get to take the next weakest animal. So for instance I put 3 cheetahs on 6 points down I can then take the 4 ostriches on 5 because they are the next weakest. If there was nothing on 5 or 4 only the zebras on 3 I could take them. Elephants are tricky because nice are the weakest on 1 point but get 3 and you can collect the elephants on 8points because elephants are scared of mice. It plays like that til no more cards and then you add up the points at the end for the winner. We play lots of games similar to this like rat a tat cat, sleeping queen's, too many monkeys so my 5 yr old is quite adaptable to the card games and picks them up quickly.