Affenzahn depicts racing monkeys, using oranges as a scoring theme (do well, and gain oranges; react poorly, and lose oranges). Players each receive four cards, corresponding to themselves and the other three racers in the game (rules are included for 2 and 3 players). Players also start with 5 oranges in their provisions (tracked on a scorepad). A neutral party begins to flip over the remaining cards one by one. Some are Way cards (no effect; anyone playing cards loses an orange), some are good actions (gain oranges), and some are bad (lose oranges). The action cards contain ranking(s) (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th), and the corresponding gain or loss for each ranking. When one of these actions comes up, players play one or two cards into a central area. These cards are then picked up and sorted through by the neutral players, discarding the second and succeeding instances of a given racer's card (so, if the corresponding cards played were racers 1, 3, 1, 1, 4, 3, 2, 2, the order for card resolution would be 1, 3, 4, 2). The players corresponding to the played cards' rankings then either gain or lose oranges based on the ranks shown on the action card. The player with the most oranges after races equal to the number of players wins.