So said my 6-year-old daughter as we pulled off the shrink wrap and I began to explain this newly arrived game which we were sitting down to play. Both of my kids (including my 4-year-old son) listened attentively as I informed them that this was a game based on a real zoo here in Canada, and we would be playing as the real-life zoo keepers who work at the zoo and spend their days caring for the needs of their animals while preparing to add new animals to their facility. Together we looked at the board, which is pre-printed with animals such as Raphael the tortoise and Napoleon the Miniature horse, and flipped through the animal cards, sparking joy and excitement as we discovered an Arctic Fox named Tiny and a python named Shakira. Then I showed my kids a pile of secret envelopes, and told them that as we win games and complete challenges we get to open these envelopes and add new animals to the game. When we discovered the envelope that we are only allowed to open when we lose a game, they realized that whether we won or lost our first game, we would get to open a secret envelope. Her eyes widening with excitement, my daughter uttered the now famous phrase: "Daddy, I think this must be the best board game ever."
Thankfully, this game lived up to those expectations. As we set up the components (which took less than a couple of minutes, even with a thorough shuffle of the resource cards), I planned to "team up" with my son in order to guide him. He's growing as a gamer, and still occasionally loses interest and goes off to play Lego between turns. But he seemed so engaged as I explained the rules that I changed plans at the last moment and opted to set them up for a two-player game while I stepped back and helped with the (very limited) admin side of the game. I did my best to zip my lips and allow them to puzzle out together the best strategies for approaching the puzzle of running their zoo. The game is won by meeting the conditions on each card in the animal deck in order the add them to the zoo, but the daily needs of each of the animals already on display compete for the zookeeper's limited resources, and because moving between areas of the zoo requires the player to discard one of their resource cards, efficiency is important.
On the first turn, both of my children chose to immediately head to the Animal Intake spaces and use their resources to admit their favourite animals. Once they had used up their daily allotment of resources, they were shocked to learn that the animals left in Crisis would require them to discard resource cards from the deck until icons matching their unmet needs appeared. On the next turn I gently asked "Do you think it would be better to see if we can take care of some of today's Needs first before you try to get the new animals?" and my daughter immediately caught on. Soon they were very effectively comparing their resource cards to the day's random Needs, and even coordinating how to best use their remaining cards after their initial actions. Sometimes the allure of those new animals waiting to be welcomed into the zoo proved too powerful to resist, especially for my son, but for the most part they thought things out together and stuck to their plans. By the end of the game my daughter was running most of the admin side independently, moving cards into the discard pile and placing tokens on cards between rounds. As they went into the last round, with only 2 cards left in the resource deck, the tension and excitement was written all over their faces. I reminded them they only needed to finish admitting the new animals into their zoo to win, even if some of the daily Needs were left unmet, and together they examined their resources to piece together who needed to take care of each animal, and with a fist pump in the air they completed their goals and won the first game.
We opened the first secret envelope and gazed at the new animals that had been unlocked. "Can we play again?" begged my son, but bedtime was calling. Throughout the bedtime routine, the conversation swirled around our game, and how close they had been to failure with only two cards left in the deck. "I can't believe we won our first game. We're just kids!" my daughter exclaimed. We have firm plans to break out the game again immediately after school tomorrow.
Is this game too easy? Not for my kids, who were thrilled to have narrowly conquered the first scenario on their own with very limited help from Dad. Will that change in a few plays if they still haven't unlocked that "Open After First Loss" envelope? Possibly, but for now they are thrilled with their success and their forward momentum as they explore more of what this game has to offer. Maybe I'll update this review after a bit more time with it. For now, I am thrilled to have this game in our collection, and as I wait for the day when I'll one day be able to play Ark Nova with my kids I'm genuinely looking forward to playing this game more with my ...
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