In The Brilliant Boar, each player takes cards showing different animal portraits on their reverse side into their hand. They can look at the cards briefly when they draw them, but then must face the cards away from them. On a player's turn, they can either take the top card from the deck into their hand or play one of their cards onto the table, attempting to make as many pairs as possible from the card just played and those already face up on the table. Whoever collects the most cards wins.