Moddervarkens: Schoonheidswedstrijd – The Beauty Pig Expansion

Farmer Bert has clearly accepted that his pigs are never going to behave like respectable farm animals. Right before the big village beauty contest, they once again decide to throw themselves straight into the mud instead of staying clean for five minutes. So now the farmer is desperately trying to wash them, decorate them with ribbons, and keep them dry with umbrellas… while the pigs immediately run back toward the nearest puddle the second he turns around.

That’s basically the idea behind Moddervarkens: Schoonheidswedstrijd, which roughly translates to “Beauty Contest” in English. Instead of only trying to make your pigs as dirty as possible like in the base game, this expansion introduces beauty-contest pigs as a second possible way to win. Which feels exactly like the kind of unnecessary farm drama this game needed.

The funny part is how naturally it fits into the original game. One player is carefully protecting elegant show pigs covered in ribbons and flowers, while somebody else is building what looks like a heavily defended mud bunker for pigs that absolutely refuse to be cleaned. The whole thing somehow makes the farm feel even more ridiculous than before, and that fits the game perfectly.

Schoonheidswedstrijd is an expansion for Moddervarkens, the Dutch version of the card game originally released in Germany as Drecksau and internationally as Dirty Pig.

👥 2-4 players, ages 7+
⌛ Playing time: 15 minutes
📝 Designer: Frank Bebenroth
🎨 Artwork: Frank Bebenroth & Katja Witt

🏢 Publisher: White Goblin Games (Dutch version, review copy provided)

Gameplay Overview

The basic structure of Moddervarkens stays exactly the same. Players still manage pigs in front of them while playing cards to protect their own animals or completely ruin everybody else’s plans. Pigs still become dirty, get cleaned again, hide inside barns, survive lightning strikes, and generally create more problems than pigs probably should.

The biggest addition is the new show pig cards. These turn pigs into decorated beauty-contest pigs covered in ribbons, flowers, and umbrellas. They can be played on both clean and dirty pigs, which immediately changes how players approach the game. In the original game, everybody is usually racing toward the same muddy goal. Here, players can suddenly change direction halfway through the game and start building a row of show pigs instead.

That second victory condition changes the table more than expected. You are no longer only watching who has the most muddy pigs. You also need to pay attention to who is collecting decorated pigs on the side while everybody else is busy throwing rain and lightning around. Somebody who looked harmless one turn can suddenly become the biggest threat at the table a few turns later.

Show pigs are also much safer than normal pigs. Rain cards, mud cards, and cleaning effects no longer affect them. The only way to remove one is with the new “Off With the Decorations” card, which removes the decorated pig and reveals the original pig underneath again. Depending on what was hidden below, that can either completely save the table or immediately create another problem.

That card ends up being more important than it first appears. Without it, the beauty-contest route would probably become too safe compared to muddy pigs constantly getting attacked. Timing those removals becomes a big part of the game once players start building protected rows of decorated pigs.

The Lucky Bird card is probably the wildest addition in the expansion. It allows players to immediately play the rest of their hand before drawing new cards. Sometimes this creates satisfying combo turns where everything suddenly comes together. Other times somebody destroys multiple plans at once, wins the game, and leaves everybody else staring at the table trying to process what just happened. The bird clearly enjoys causing problems.

One detail I liked a lot is how fully protected muddy pigs now become more of a commitment. A dirty pig with a locked barn and lightning rod can no longer become a show pig afterwards. So once you fully invest in the muddy route, there is no elegant way back anymore. That pig has officially committed to the mud lifestyle.

The expansion also includes a tournament mode where players collect trophies or mud buckets across multiple rounds depending on how they win. Those awards become victory points, and after several games the player with the highest total wins the tournament.

Artwork, Components, and Visual Design

Schoonheidswedstrijd adds 32 new cards and several cardboard scoring tokens to the base game. Inside the box you get Show Pig cards, Off With the Decorations cards, Lucky Bird cards, and trophy and muddy bucket tokens for tournament play.

Visually, the expansion fits perfectly next to the original game. The base game box is all about pigs happily diving into mud, while this expansion suddenly presents a pig proudly posing with ribbons and a golden trophy like it’s preparing for the fanciest pig competition imaginable. Seeing both boxes next to each other already tells you exactly what kind of extra nonsense this expansion adds.

The artwork keeps exactly the same exaggerated cartoon style from the original game. The pigs still look ridiculously expressive, with giant snouts, overconfident smiles, and faces that somehow make them look both proud and slightly confused at the same time.

The show pig cards are easily the highlight here. The joke works instantly. One pig is proudly wearing ribbons while another is hiding inside a muddy reinforced barn like its entire future depends on it. Once both styles start appearing next to each other around the table, the whole thing becomes even funnier.

The cards also remain very easy to read from across the table. In a game where everybody constantly needs to monitor each other’s pigs, that matters more than tiny artwork details. You immediately understand whether somebody is building a muddy pig fortress or preparing for a farm fashion show.

The tournament tokens are simple, but they do enough. The shiny trophies and muddy buckets fit the joke of the expansion nicely, and they help the tournament mode feel slightly more meaningful than simply replaying standalone games over and over again.

Overall, the expansion keeps the same playful energy as the original without making the game feel cluttered or overdesigned. It still feels approachable, silly, and fully aware of how ridiculous the entire idea already is.

Our Experience

People started watching each other much more carefully almost immediately. In the original game, it usually becomes obvious pretty quickly who is closest to winning and who needs to be stopped. With this expansion, that became much less clear because players could suddenly shift from muddy pigs to show pigs halfway through the game.

There were several moments where the entire table focused on the wrong player. Somebody would look harmless for most of the game because they did not have many muddy pigs, only for everybody to realise too late that they were one decorated pig away from winning instead. Suddenly everybody was paying attention to every pig on the table instead of only targeting whoever looked dirtiest.

The show pig cards also became more interactive than expected. At first they look like straightforward progress cards, but players quickly started using them to interfere with each other’s plans. Somebody would spend several turns building a protected muddy pig setup, only for another player to suddenly turn that pig into a decorated beauty contestant instead. Watching players completely derail each other’s pig strategies became half the entertainment.

The “Off With the Decorations” cards created some of the best timing moments during our plays. Sometimes somebody removed a show pig at exactly the right moment and saved the entire table. Other times people waited too long, realised somebody was about to win, and then discovered they no longer had the right card available. Those situations created a lot of nervous reactions once players started collecting multiple show pigs.

The tournament mode also worked better than expected. Since individual rounds can still swing wildly because of lucky draws, playing several games with trophies and mud buckets gave the evening a better overall flow. It also created funny moments where players became weirdly proud of winning with beauty pigs instead of muddy pigs, as if that was somehow the more respectable victory.

At the same time, some groups will probably prefer the simplicity of the original game. This expansion creates more interruptions, more reversals, and more situations where carefully protected pigs disappear at exactly the wrong moment. Most of the fun at our table came from people complaining about the exact same rain card for the next twenty minutes afterwards, but not everybody enjoys that level of chaos in lighter card games.

Our Thoughts

This expansion works because it does not try to turn the game into something completely different. It still feels like the same silly card game about pigs ruining each other’s day. The expansion changes the game from “everyone wants mud” into players constantly switching between muddy pigs and beauty pigs depending on what is happening around the table.

After a few plays of the base game, this helped sessions feel less repetitive. The second victory condition changes how people approach the game because players can suddenly pivot into a completely different plan instead of only pushing toward mud every single round.

The theme also works extremely well with the mechanics. A pig hiding inside a reinforced mud barn while another proudly stands around wearing ribbons somehow makes complete sense within the strange logic of this game. Nothing feels disconnected from the original idea, which makes the expansion very easy to mix into the base game permanently.

At the same time, the expansion absolutely increases the swinginess. Wins can appear very suddenly, progress disappears more often, and players spend even more time reacting to each other’s cards instead of building long-term plans. If your group hates losing progress because of one unlucky draw, this expansion probably will not change their mind.

The expansion can also make games slightly longer. Since pigs constantly move between muddy, protected, and decorated states now, games sometimes continue for several extra turns after it already looked like somebody was about to win. Even then, the game never really felt stuck because turns still move very quickly.

Strategically, the game is still very light. Most decisions are still about timing, reacting to the table, and trying not to become the obvious target too early. If somebody already dislikes the randomness or take-that style of the base game, this expansion probably will not completely change their mind either.

This expansion works best for people who already enjoy the base game and simply want more variety, more interaction, and more ridiculous pig situations. It still feels like the same silly pig game, just with more ways for everything to fall apart.

And any expansion that lets players win through competitive pig beauty contests while other pigs continue rolling around in mud nearby probably understands exactly what kind of game it wants to be. This quickly became the version of Moddervarkens we would probably choose most of the time.

📝 We received a copy of the game from White Goblin Games.