2024Johan Benvenuto
- Videos
- 156
- Creators
- 127
1 - 4 players30 - 45 minMedium weight

2026Johan Benvenuto, Gricha German
From BoardGameGeek
Bear Necessities is a competitive tableau‑building game featuring simultaneous drafting with a reserve, in‑game scoring, and honeypots! During each round, players draft two cards from their starting hand: one to add to their tableau and one to save for the next round, then pass the remaining cards to the player on their left. The card you add to your tableau must be placed orthogonally adjacent to an already placed card, and it activates immediately, granting you victory points. It also triggers all of its adjacent neighbors, creating powerful combos and cascading effects. The cards you receive from the other player are combined with the one you saved from the previous round, and you draft again until your hand is empty. At that point, you replenish your hand and repeat the process until everyone has completed a 4‑column by 3‑row grid: after 12 rounds, the game ends and the player with the most points is the winner! -description from the publisher
Bear Necessities has 2 videos from 2 creators: 1 how-to-play guide and 1 other video. They date from August to October 2026.
If you like it, try Harmonies and Cowboy Bebop: Space Serenade, also by Johan Benvenuto, or Tag Team and Biomos, also by Gricha German. It appears in convention videos from Spiel Essen 2026.
2024Johan Benvenuto
1 - 4 players30 - 45 minMedium weight
2025Gricha German, Corentin Lebrat
2 players15 minMedium weight
2019Johan Benvenuto, Florian Sirieix
1 - 4 players30 - 90 minMedium weight
2023Gricha German
1 - 4 players20 minLight weight
From BoardGameGeek:
Bear Necessities is a competitive tableau‑building game featuring simultaneous drafting with a reserve, in‑game scoring, and honeypots! During each round, players draft two cards from their starting hand: one to add to their tableau and one to save for the next round, then pass the remaining cards to the player on their left. The card you add to your tableau must be placed orthogonally adjacent to an already placed card, and it activates immediately, granting you victory points. It also triggers all of its adjacent neighbors, creating powerful combos and cascading effects. The cards you receive from the other player are combined with the one you saved from the previous round, and you draft again until your hand is empty. At that point, you replenish your hand and repeat the process until everyone has completed a 4‑column by 3‑row grid: after 12 rounds, the game ends and the player with the most points is the winner! -description from the publisher
Designers
Johan Benvenuto, Gricha German
Artist
Kerri Aitken
Publisher
Mojito Studios
Mechanics