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New York Zoo

£16.995£33.99Clearance
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About this deal

If you ever wanted to experience zoo management to its fullest, your best bet was video games. That was until Ark Nova came around in late 2021. You’re in charge of several aspects of zoo management, in particular: Of course, zoos made their way into gaming. Working at a zoo is a dream job for many, after all. And games allow you to focus on the fun parts of it, rather than the mundane everyday routines and long hours. But in games, it’s about planning your zoo layout, building pens, taking care of animals and visitors, and making money. Players start with a blank board, a dirt covered empty lot where their zoo enclosures and attractions will soon begin springing up from. Players move an elephant, the shared placement marker around the board, up to four spaces in a two player game, where the elephant stops means that player can take the top polyomino enclosure tile or the two animals depicted on the space. The enclosures get added, and then if you have open enclosures, you add the penguins, flamingos, arctic foxes, meerkats and tree kangaroos. You’ve got a little holding pen area, a green room for animals, to the side as well – if you need to hold on to one of the critters you’ve just acquired.

New York Zoo Review - Tabletop Gaming

When a player gains animal meeples they can be placed into an enclosure of matching animal type or into an empty animal house. Making this a little more complicated, whenever a player adds an animal in this way to an enclosure they can also move a matching animal from a house into the same enclosure. This can be slightly forgettable in your first game, so players may have to keep reminding each other. For a regular Joe or Jane like me, zoos are pretty much the only place we can see exotic animals live and up close. However morally questionable they are (the animals are held in captivity after all), they are also a valuable asset in animal research in preservation. The aim of New York Zoo is not to score points, nor is it to breed animals. The winner is simply the first player to completely fill their zoo board with tiles. Of course players are dragged one way and another by the options and possibilities. One minute players will be focused on the end goal of filling their board and all of a sudden they will be distracted by breeding animals, thanks to the bonuses. If the elephant passes a breeding spot, anyone with those animals in their enclosures get to add a couple more. Once you’ve completed an enclosure you return those animals and take any amusement tile of your choice. These are your popcorn stands and other human distractions – the sizes and variety of these means that you’re able to fill the gaps left by your polyomino pieces. Which is important as the first player to fill in their board wins.Ultimately though, we were a little underwhelmed. Like the sardonically gazing animals on the cover of the box, we felt a little detached, cynical, and nonplussed when someone completed their zoo and won. Unlike a lot of other games where you’ve building a little scene in front of you, there’s just not that joy of looking down at the end of the game, regardless of whether you win or not and being happy with what’s been made. You’re not going to be greeted with a full zoo of interesting animals, walkways and otherwise like you may expect. Instead, if you’ve been playing efficiently, there’s probably a mess of amusements and a lot of empty pens – as you return your animals for those bonus tiles.

New York Zoo - The Board Game Hut New York Zoo - The Board Game Hut

On your turn, you may move the Elephant meeple up to four squares (you may stop before though). When the Elephant meeple lands on your chosen space you follow the actions of that space. You’re limited to two different types of space. There will either be tiles and so you must place the topmost tile on your personal zoo board OR there will be two animals on the space and you then collect both of those animals (you may place animals inside enclosures if you wish - up to 2 per turn).

I still have games here or on their way that I haven’t played or just haven’t played enough to include, but might be worthy of inclusion, such as Holi, Gods Love Dinosaurs, and Clank! Legacy; and know of other games that are highly regarded but that I haven’t played, like Paleo, Alma Mater, Ride the Rails, and Calico. Their exclusion isn’t a sign that they’re not worth your time. Many famous tile placing games have been created by Uwe Rosenberg with some being the highest-rated and beloved games in history. Most of these are much heavier games than I’m interested in, but I can appreciate the love for games like Agricola, A Feast for Odin and La Havre. His other, lighter, polyomino games like Patchwork and Cottage Garden have been enjoyable. New York Zoo falls somewhere in between, limiting the length of analysis paralysis (woohoo!) on each turn that tends to plague me in more complex games. No need to worry about counting victory points, planning for epic scoring combos, or thinking twelve steps ahead to build up enough resources for that elusive L-shaped polyomino. The goal of New York Zoo is simple and straightforward, fill every space on your player board with Tetris-like pieces, representing animal enclosures and attractions, before anyone else. The final wrinkle to the game is the idea of animal breeding. Yes, those cute fur babies are going to make their own cute fur babies. Each animal type has a breeding space on the center board, which, when crossed, triggers animal breeding. Let’s say during my turn I pass over the fox breeding space, now all players with enclosures containing at least one Arctic fox get to add an additional fox to that enclosure. Do this a few times and these frisky friends will produce enough foxes to fill your enclosure and earn you an attraction tile. This adds more weight to your decision each turn; will you go for animals to ensure you have enough in each enclosure to complete the circle of life with each breeding opportunity? If not, you’re unlikely to reap the rewards of those precious attraction tiles. Have a lonely flamingo in an enclosure by itself? Well, that feathery avifauna can’t reproduce on its own. (Despite the numerous discussions that have been had at our table on how asexual reproduction works.) What other game can you say has your mother-in-law trying to sell you on the idea that her flamingo is an evolutionary anomaly that can asexually reproduce?

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