New York Zoo

Product Information

As the game doesn’t take up a massive chunk of time, roughly 30-45 minutes, it’s easy enough to get to the table. Games are never going to be greatly different from each other, but I still think New York Zoo has good replayability due to the abstract nature of play. 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! A game all about creating a peaceful garden using grids and tiles by the equally great Michael Keisling. If you liked the puzzle element most, it’s worth a trip to the zoo. The Best Sitcoms on Netflix Right Now (October 2023) By Garrett Martin and Paste Staff October 20, 2023 | 12:00pm

Zoo Board Games in 2023 | Victory Conditions 5 Best Zoo Board Games in 2023 | Victory Conditions

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. The win condition is simple and only requires you to completely fill your zoo with enclosures and attractions, the first player to do this wins. However, if the game ends after a breeding action there is a chance the game can end as a tie. If so then the player with the most animals in their zoo wins. Fast Game for 2 Players 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.

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. On your turn, you must move the Elephant around the board as your main action. The minimum spaces it must move is 1 and the maximum it can move is based on the player count (4 spaces, for instance, in a game with 2 players). If you stop the Elephant next to one of the Enclosure tile spaces, you will take the top Enclosure tile and add it to your player board. Or if you stop the Elephant on one of the animal acquisition spaces, you will receive the 2 animals shown and add them to your player board. Once you’ve performed your main action, if you crossed one of the breeding lines printed on the main board, the animal depicted on the breeding line will breed. I will discuss the rules for Enclosure tile placement, animal acquisition, and breeding in their own sections. Enclosure Tiles 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? But behind a silly theme with an equally silly (but wonderful) artwork, lies a deep strategic eurogame that uses worker placement, resource management, and bidding as its main mechanisms. It’s not for casual players, as the learning process is lengthy, but the game is full of variety and offers different strategies. 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.

Board Game Review: New York Zoo Board Game Review: New York Zoo

Perhaps the stand-out game mechanic is the bidding in the worker placement phase. Players simultaneously prepare different-sized groups of imps (workers) and the largest group gets to act first. Prepare a bigger group to make sure you’re the first to get the wanted actions space or prepare several smaller groups to carry out more actions? Everyone loves to visit a zoo. But how about managing it on your home table? Find out which are currently the 5 best zoo board games on the market in 2023. Introduction to 5 Best Zoo Board Games in 2023 Zatu has an excellent range of games and for most of them the best prices too. Delivery is always fast and I have never received a game in bad condition. 10/10 would recommend. The main zoo board is placed in the middle of the play area and the polyomino tiles placed in the little gaps, according to their colour lightest green to darkest green. Take your time with this, as getting any of the shapes in the wrong spots may cause the game to be slightly unbalanced.To place a tile into your zoo board, you must also have an animal to place into that enclosure. This can either be from the three holding enclosures on the top left of your board, or you may relocate an animal from another enclosure, so long as you don’t leave an enclosure empty. 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.

New York Zoo | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

Show your love for Meeple Mountain and for your favorite hobby all in one great tshirt. The Meeple Mountain Gaming… Read more… 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? 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. 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.

Breeding occurs for all players simultaneously. When a player crosses a breeding line with the Elephant, they should announce to the other players that a breeding for the specific type of animal will occur once their main action is concluded so that everyone is aware that the breeding is about to happen. This player has crossed the penguin breeding line. Hence, a penguin breeding will occur once their main action is completed. 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. In New York Zoo, the players take on the roles of developers as they work to construct animal parks and fill them with various animals and Attractions. Each player begins the game with an empty zoo board and a couple of animals. On their turn, they will either choose from a selection of polyomino tiles to add to their boards as animal Enclosures or choose from a selection of animals to add to their boards in an effort to fill their already existing Enclosures. All in all, the game works. And it’s nice to have some games that don’t feel like the world ended when you lose!