To start, each player gets their own player board. The ones you use are determined by player count. Each board has a different sized area in which to build your zoo and a varying amount of houses to store animals. You then choose a starting player, they will take the board marked with a 1, for that player count. Animal meeples are then placed into the carboard tray and each player takes 2 animals of the type marked at the top of the player board. These are placed in two of the houses on the player board. New York Zoo is a lovely, lightly strategic tile-placement game that is so visually appealing. Its gentle racing gameplay isn’t too stress-inducing, and as such, I find it a calming, enjoyable experience to play. Of note: Every Enclosure tile is made up of a number of squares, each square can only ever hold a single animal, and no Enclosure can ever hold more than a single species of animal. Animal Acquisition Take the 1 player, player board. Use the side of your choice. Set up the action strip like the 2 player fast game. The tiles removed from the top of the enclosure piles are then returned to the box, not placed on the player board. You then take the 5 range markers. These are marked thus 0, 1, 2, 3, 4+.

New York Zoo Review | Board Games - Zatu Games UK

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).

The gameplay is straight forward - either puzzle a new enclosure tile into your zoo area or gain new animals to populate. The first player to cover all the construction spaces on their zoo board with Enclosure Tiles and Attractions wins the game. If you’re after one animal, in particular, you may also land on an available animal space and instead of taking the two animals shown on that space, take any ONE animal of your choice. This can be handy when you’re getting close to completing an enclosure or the animal you seek is about to breed! New York Zoo is a race to the finish line. You’ll want to fill up your construction board as fast as you can, but as you need to place an animal in every enclosure you acquire you’ll want to keep an eye on your animal population too. Plus, as mentioned, filling animal enclosures is the only way to get your hands on the smallest tiles that’ll fill any potential gaps you’ll have! Penguins and Meerkats and Roo’s, Oh My! I first became aware of Uwe Rosenburg’s New York Zoo in an online video highlighting the top upcoming releases to watch out for. Uwe’s design, polyominoes and the most adorable animeeples...Sign. Me. Up. While the appeal (how attractive it is) of your zoo directly influences your earnings and victory points, the bulk of the latter will be earned by doing precious conservation projects. Your mission is not just to manage your zoo to make the most money, but to help preserve and thrive endangered species.

How to Play New York Zoo - Board Games - Zatu Games UK

Zooloretto is the most accessible game on our list. It’s perfect for families, as its game mechanics cater to both beginner and advanced gamers. The same rules apply for the core elements of enclosure placing and breeding as per the main game. This includes the special breeding rule of the 2-3 player variant.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).

New York Zoo | Board Games | Zatu Games UK

Each move of that Elephant pawn is also setting up the turn for the next player in line, so you’ll find yourself trying to calculate which tiles are within their reach and which ones are most likely to help them the least. Do you move the Elephant just enough to keep them from snatching up a tile that would fit into their board perfectly even though it means choosing something suboptimal for yourself or do you leap ahead and grab the thing you really want? Will moving the Elephant trigger a breeding? If so, will you be able to capitalize on it? If not, do you really want to risk triggering a breeding when it may help someone else more than you? These kinds of mental gymnastics become even more pronounced in the 2-player game. If there’s a piece coming up that you want, then you can move the Elephant in such a way to guarantee that your opponent won’t be able to get to it but that regardless of what they choose to do on their turn, they’ll put you within striking distance of the tile on your next one.Tile placement is the name of the game. On your turn, you either take a tile or you take animals. If you want to take a tile, you must have an animal to place on it. If you place two animals of the same kind, they will breed, once an enclosure is full, you can empty it to buy an attraction, and so on. New York Zoo is a polyomino tile placement board game, from publisher Feuerland Spiele. Designed by Uwe Rosenberg, featuring artwork from Felix Wermke, the game sees 1 – 5 players placing animal enclosures and attractions into their zoo, and breeding the likes of penguins and kangaroos. Lasting around 45 minutes the game uses a rondel to drive the race of completing your zoo. However, does this mean you just go round and round without getting anywhere? Let’s find out! Along the way, certain animals will breed and produce offspring which are added to existing Enclosures. When an Enclosure is filled, the animals present on it are removed and the player can then add an Attraction tile to their board. And this is important because the goal of the game is to be the first player to fill in your board entirely and those Attraction tiles will help you fill in the holes left by your Enclosure tile placements. Animal breeding happens after tile/animal selection and placement, so it may happen that multiple players will fill in their boards as a result of this. If this occurs, the tie is broken by whoever has the most animals remaining. As soon as the tile is placed onto your board, you MUST move at least one animal into the Enclosure. This animal can come from one of your houses or even one of your other Enclosure tiles (as long as moving that animal does not cause the tile it is moving from to become empty). This, of course, means that you cannot add an Enclosure tile to your board if there are no animals that you can legally add to it. A maximum of 2 animals can be added to a newly placed Enclosure, but they must come from different places. This player has elected to move flamingos from existing flamingo Enclosures onto the newly placed tile. In my first game, I became hyper focused on setting up an animal breeding factory. It made me feel exceedingly clever watching my Enclosure tiles fill up each time a breeding occurred, but that level of focus ultimately lost me the game. It’s very easy to get so caught up in the excitement of watching your board fill up with animals that you lose sight of the end goal: filling up your board with tiles. But ignoring animal breeding entirely is also not the way to go. You must have animals to place Enclosures, so you’re forced to maintain a healthy balance between filling up your board and filling up your Enclosures. Uwe Rosenberg is a master at putting his players into these kinds of positions. In Patchwork, for instance, instead of balancing breeding versus expansion, you’re juggling buttons and time. Other games, like A Feast For Odin, have you trying to keep even more plates spinning. In A Feast For Odin you’re having to deal with feeding people, acquiring points, and filling in your board to avoid negative points.

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

Sadly not one of Rosenberg’s classics, but certainly an appealing little puzzle for fans of the designer. Come for the pleasing puzzle, but don’t think too much about the theme. Gameplay is straightforward as you have only two options on your turn: build a new enclosure in your zoo, or populate your zoo with more animals. But be sure to time your actions well since you want your zoo to participate in as many animal breedings as possible. As you progress around the board, breeding will be activated for animal types. If at that point you have two or more of one type of animal in the same enclosure, they breed! You may take one more of that animal and place it in the same enclosure! If you’re looking for an even lighter polyomino board game, bears are your answer. Here, your zoo is focused entirely on different bear species and their appropriate enclosures. Brown bears, polar bears, Kodiak bears, and even koalas – the variety of species are plentiful. Each player that has at least two of the named animals in a single Enclosure will be able to add an additional animal of the same type to the Enclosure. If they have a second Enclosure containing at least two animals of the named type in it, they may add an additional animal to that Enclosure as well. Only two Enclosures can be added to in this way.* When breeding occurs in an Enclosure, if you happen to have an animal of the appropriate type in one of your houses, you can add that to this Enclosure as well, but only 1 animal can be moved from your houses in this way. Even though this player has 3 penguin enclosures with the appropriate number of penguins needed to breed, they can only add penguins to 2 of them.

Full disclosure: I am an Uwe Rosenberg nerd. As of this writing I own 38 distinct titles by him. So take that as a confession that I tend to view his creations through rose-tinted glasses. When I find out that Uwe is releasing a new game, I get excited and very rarely am I let down once I finally get my hands on it. So, bear that in mind as you read my thoughts on New York Zoo. 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. If there is ever a breeding in one, or more, of your enclosures. You get the opportunity to breed in another enclosure of your choice, regardless of animal type. A spring time bonus if you will. Where love transcends species. How Do You Win, Wild Thing? It matters what others do on their turns, at least some of the time. When breeding occurs on someone else’s turn there is almost an excitement, derived from someone else triggering that for you rather than the other way around. The rest of the game feels very much like a multiplayer solitaire experience. The other players can take tiles you want and will move the elephant around the rondel but otherwise it’s all about the puzzle in front of you.