Fat Bear Week is coming super early this year with the board game adaptation Katmai

Fat Bear Weekthe National Park Service’s official celebration of the fattest bears, is getting its own unofficial board game. Tabletop publisher Osprey Games has announced the upcoming release Katmai: The Bears of Brooks Rivera two-player board game directly inspired by the cultural phenomenon. You play as sand- or cinnamon-colored brown bears who stake your claim on parts of an Alaskan river in the hopes of catching enough salmon to survive hibernation.

A bit of a departure from the action-packed, hardcore war games that Osprey Games is known for, Katmai lets players see the world from a four-legged perspective. However, that doesn’t mean Osprey has left its strategic, competitive gameplay behind. While these bears may seem like a friend (each is represented by one of 24 cards with furry illustrations, unique bear abilities, and names like Flo, Marge, Milkshake, and Headbob), they fight for dominance. As fishing spots along the Brooks River become occupied, bears compete in challenges to feed themselves and their cubs.

The game isn’t subtle about its real-world source material. Fat Bear Week takes place every October in Katmai National Park, an Alaskan sanctuary that is home to not only bears and salmon, but also caribou, lynx, wolves and more. All bears in the game are named after real brown bears from Katmai National Park. While the majority of the rulebook covers the mechanics of the game, the last six pages are devoted to teaching players about Katmai, the animal inhabitants, and the work of the Katmai Conservancywhich has been committed to funding research into the region and preserving its unique ecosystem since the park’s creation in 1980.

Katmai: The Bears of Brooks River, designed by Peter Ridgeway with illustration by Tom Lopez, it is scheduled for release on February 27. You can pre-order the game now for $35 on the Osprey Games website.