Pilfering Pandas

From BoardGameGeek:

You're a busy group of pandas planning your escape from the zoo but you'll need supplies. You have been rummaging and pilfering unwanted food from all the other animals but now the Zoo Keeper is on to you. You must quickly trade all the goods you have collected so you can get the supplies you need and make your escape before you get caught. But be careful, certain actions will raise the Zoo Keeper's suspicion more than others. Pilfering Pandas is a reinvention of a classic card game but we've made a huge number of changes, not least creating a cooperative and solo mode. Pilfering Pandas is the third game from Wren Games who aim to bring back gaming to busy people. Pilfering Pandas therefore have a short playtime but we maintain depth of decisions and intuitive gameplay to give a game with some bite. Pilfering Pandas has similarities to Rummy as you are making number sets and runs but it also has this really interesting discard pile mechanism and this was the thing that we most wanted to bring to modern-day gaming. The Hideout is where you 'discard' a card but unlike traditional discard piles, the Hideout is not a pile, it's a spread of cards visible to all players and, for a fee, you can pick up as many cards as you want from it and make huge plays of sets in a single turn (there's only a hand limit in solo games). Players must collect sets and trade them with the Meerkats to earn points to increase their chance of escaping from the zoo. However, they must always stay at least one step ahead of the zoo keeper so they don't get caught by playing and picking up cards wisely and efficiently. But didn't want Pilfering Pandas to be just another set collection game so we also introduced a whole new level to set collecting whereby the previous sets you play directly effects what sets you can play in the future, making it much more strategic than traditional set collecting games. -description from designer