New York Zoo

Product Information

It’s the best new game of 2020, and a welcome entry into a genre of board game that could use some new blood. This game has great table presence, with colourful tiles and animal pieces combining for sensory delight. Thus if a tile shows an objective of three red symbols, you can place one red tile adjacent to it, and then create a chain with two more red tiles, and score it without the latter two tiles touching the one with the objective. Every kid remembers the first they went to the zoo and saw animals like elephants, tigers, giraffes, and others.

New York Zoo - Capstone Games

Pendulum is a turnless game played with three sand timers that dictate when players can move their workers, and which spaces are available, which can make game play exciting and frenetic, while asking you to keep a lot in your head, lest you place a worker somewhere and then forget to use them. 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. 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. This can help you to fill enclosures quickly even when the animal in them isn’t supposed to breed according to the board.You gain the most points if you find Planet X, but can also rack up points for identifying what object is in each sector, so the game doesn’t just end as soon as the first player solves the puzzle. It’s from Stonemaier Games ( Scythe, Charterstone, Tapestry), so the quality of the materials is very high and you can see how thoroughly playtested the game was before release. 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.

New York Zoo — Board Game Details — Meeple Mountain New York Zoo — Board Game Details — Meeple Mountain

The kids are shown on cards in your deck, with each player getting two ‘best friend’ cards they keep all game, while other kids can be recruited from the table or from other players’ yards—if you draw a card on a turn but don’t use it, that card goes into your yard and any other player can take it for free. With over a thousand new board games released each year—a pace that seems unsustainable, even with demand still growing—any game with an unusual or entirely new mechanic gets a leg up amidst the sea of worker-placement and deckbuilding titles. The rolling fields of grass and trees have given way to towering skyscrapers and housing developments. If not, do you really want to risk triggering a breeding when it may help someone else more than you?This can be handy when you’re getting close to completing an enclosure or the animal you seek is about to breed! 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. Effectively, if a player breeds one type of animal they can then breed in an enclosure of any animal type.

NEW YORK ZOO - Capstone Games NEW YORK ZOO - Capstone Games

It’s not for casual players, as the learning process is lengthy, but the game is full of variety and offers different strategies. This player has elected to move flamingos from existing flamingo Enclosures onto the newly placed tile. On successful breeding, you can also add a further animal from one of the houses, if you have one, to that enclosure.

You can also (somewhat easily) plan for your next turn as the elephant’s limited movements help you plan for the best, and worst case scenario.