tabletoppingboardgames 
In Moddervarkens, every pig just wants one thing in life: mud. Your job is to make sure all your pigs end up filthy before the other players manage to do the same. Of course, it never stays that simple for long. Somebody throws rain at the table, sends in a farmer with a brush, or burns down your carefully protected barn with lightning. It’s basically a stressful farming simulator for people who enjoy ruining each other’s plans.
What I like about Moddervarkens is that it knows exactly how silly it is. You’re sitting there getting emotionally attached to cartoon pigs covered in mud while arguing with your friends because somebody cleaned your favourite pig for the third time in ten minutes. That’s the whole game.
Moddervarkens is the Dutch edition of the card game originally released in Germany as Drecksau. Internationally, it’s also known as Dirty Pig.
👥 2-4 players, ages 7+
⌛ Playing time: 10 minutes
📝 Designer: Frank Bebenroth
🎨 Artwork: Frank Bebenroth & Katja Witt
🏢 Publisher: White Goblin Games (Dutch version, review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The setup is very straightforward. Every player starts with a number of clean pigs placed in front of them. In a two-player game you get five pigs each, with three players you get four pigs, and with four players everybody gets three pigs instead. The goal is simple: be the first player with only dirty pigs left.
On your turn you usually play one card, do the effect, and draw a new card. Most cards either help your own pigs or completely mess with somebody else. Mud cards let you flip one of your clean pigs to the dirty side, while rain cards wash all unprotected dirty pigs clean again. Rain cards also have a special talent for appearing exactly when somebody thinks they are about to win.
To protect your pigs, you can place barns on them. Barns stop rain from cleaning the pig inside, but they don’t stop the farmer scrub cards. Those still clean your pig again because apparently this farmer takes his hygiene job very seriously. Then you get the extra protection cards. Lightning rods make a barn immune to lightning forever, and locked barn cards stop farmers from cleaning the pig inside. There is one important restriction though: you can only lock a barn if there is already a dirty pig inside it.
What I enjoy most is how these layers slowly build on top of each other during play. First you simply try to get a pig dirty. Then you start worrying about rain. Then somebody threatens your barn with lightning, so now you need a lightning rod too. The protection system slowly turns every pig into a small project you want to keep alive.
And yes, once somebody manages to build the full combo with a dirty pig, a barn, a lightning rod, and a locked door… that pig basically retires in luxury for the rest of the game. Untouchable. Living its best muddy life.
There’s also a small rule I appreciate because it avoids annoying dead turns. If you can’t play any of your cards, you can throw away your whole hand and draw three new cards instead. The game ends immediately when one player has all their pigs dirty.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
Moddervarkens comes in a small card game box with 66 cards inside. You get double-sided pig cards, mud cards, rain cards, barns, lightning, lightning rods, farmer cards, and locked barn cards.
The pig cards are probably my favourite part visually. One side shows a clean pig, the other side shows a muddy pig, so you simply flip them during the game. It’s practical, easy to understand, and just satisfying to do. There’s something funny about flipping a pig card and acting like you’ve accomplished something important.
The artwork has this exaggerated cartoon style that fits the game really well. The pigs look way too happy rolling around in mud, and the farmer cards lean fully into the silly humour. The rain and lightning cards are simple, but very easy to recognise during play. The whole thing feels playful without trying too hard. I also like that the cards are easy to read from across the table. You don’t spend time squinting at tiny text or asking what a card does every five minutes. Especially in a lighter game like this, that matters more than people sometimes realise.
That said, the production is still pretty basic. You’re not getting fancy components or anything surprising in the box. It’s just cards with a glossy finish, and for this kind of game, that works perfectly fine. I don’t think Moddervarkens needs deluxe wooden pigs covered in realistic mud textures… although somebody somewhere would definitely buy that.
Our Experience
For us, people started turning against each other almost immediately. The second somebody managed to protect a few dirty pigs, everybody else suddenly became very interested in stopping them. Rain cards started flying around, barns got destroyed, and players began making temporary alliances that usually lasted about thirty seconds.
One thing we noticed pretty quickly was how visible the game state always is. You immediately know who is doing well, whose pigs are vulnerable, and who is about to become the target of the entire table. Especially with three or four players, people naturally start teaming up for a turn or two just to slow the leader down. At times it almost felt less like a pig game and more like a negotiation about who deserved to suffer next.
People also became weirdly protective of their pigs. That sounds ridiculous because they are literally cartoon pigs covered in mud, but somehow it still happens. At one point somebody around the table actually said, “Leave him alone, he finally has a roof over his head,” after another player threatened to destroy a barn. That probably explains the mood of the game better than anything else.
Some of the funniest situations came from players building what looked like the perfect protected pig, only for everything to disappear one turn later. Somebody spends half the game protecting one pig like it’s a national treasure, then another player casually drops a card and the whole setup falls apart. Sometimes the table bursts out laughing. Sometimes somebody just sits there staring at the rain card in complete disappointment.
At three or four players, the game becomes much more about convincing the table who the real problem is. Players constantly change targets depending on who looks closest to winning, which keeps everybody involved the whole time. At two players, the game felt more straightforward for us. Still enjoyable, but missing some of the chaos and conversations that gave the larger games their personality.
Luck also has a pretty big impact. With only a few cards in your hand, some turns completely depend on whether you draw the card you need or not. A rain card or farmer card can suddenly undo several turns of work. In the right group, that becomes part of the fun. In the wrong group, it’s easy to imagine somebody getting frustrated after losing progress over and over again.
Because turns are so short, though, nobody stays frustrated for very long. Even when your plans fall apart, you’re usually back to bothering somebody else almost immediately.
Our Thoughts
Moddervarkens works best when you look at it as a small filler game instead of expecting something deeper. This is not trying to be a heavy strategy game hidden behind pig artwork. It’s a simple card game built around interaction, timing, and constantly getting in each other’s way. And to be fair, it does that really well.
Mud makes pigs dirty. Rain washes them clean. Barns protect pigs. Lightning destroys barns. Farmers clean pigs again. Everything is so easy to understand that even people who rarely play board games usually know what’s happening after only a few turns. You barely need to explain the logic because the theme already explains most of it for you.
It’s also the kind of game you can explain in a few minutes without people glazing over halfway through. You can restart immediately after a game ends, play it between larger games, or bring it to family gatherings without worrying whether everybody already knows modern board games.
At the same time, some players will probably run out of excitement after several plays. The game loop is intentionally straightforward. Most turns come down to either improving your own position or damaging somebody else’s. Beyond the protection combinations, there are not many surprising interactions or long-term plans to discover.
Some people will laugh every time a rain card appears. Others will get annoyed after losing progress for the third time in one game. That’s probably the biggest thing groups need to know before playing. This is absolutely a take-that game, and the player in front usually gets targeted the hardest.
For me, the game works because it never tries to become more complicated than it needs to be. You always know what kind of experience you’re getting here, and I appreciate that. It’s the kind of game where people keep bringing up that one terrible rain card ten minutes after the game already ended.
Still, there’s something charming about that. Not every game needs to be bigger or more ambitious. Sometimes a game about protecting muddy pigs while arguing with your friends is already enough.
I’d mostly bring this out with families, casual groups, or people who enjoy games where everyone keeps getting in each other’s way. It worked best for us with three or four players, where the table talk, blaming, and temporary alliances became half the game.
📝 We received a copy of the game from White Goblin Games.
