...and you are gonna move a lot of tiles and animal-shaped meeples.
Puzzling and animal breeding: Designer Uwe Rosenberg is at his best!
New York Zoo is what is called a polyomino puzzle game. The idea is that you want to be the first player to have their zoo board filled with multiform Tetris-like puzzle pieces, each representing a cage or enclosure.
Build animal enclosures, introduce new animals, and raise their offspring. The game play is straight forward as you have only two turn options: puzzle a new enclosure tile into your zoo area or gain new animals to populate your animal enclosures. But be sure to time your actions well since you want your zoo to participate in as many animal breedings as possible.
You start with a zoo board and two animals, which are placed in the "indoor enclosures" on the left side of the board.
After that, players take turns moving the elephant on the center board with one to four (or three based on your player count) squares to grab a tile with an outdoor enclosure or two animals for your zoo.
If you choose to grab an outdoor enclosure, you will need to place it in your zoo and add an animal that comes from your indoor cage or from one of the other enclosure tiles in your zoo. If you take animals, you can place them in one of your pens or on one of the cages on your board. It is important to note that each outdoor enclosure tile can only contain one type of animal.
As the elephant walks around the center board, it also passes the so-called breeding areas. When this happens, animals can multiply, but only when there are two of the same on a field tile, a third is added.
Once one of your areas is full of animals, move it from your board back to the supply, keep one in an indoor enclosure if you wish, and get an attraction tile to fill up your zoo faster. The game ends when the first player completely fills their zoo with accommodation and attraction tiles. He or she is the winner.
It is as simple as that. And it is brilliant.
You can learn it right now from the included tutorial, thanks again to Nekonyancer for this. Or simply click the link below to start a game:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=newyorkzoo
We would love to thank Feuerland Spiele for their authorization to bring the game on BGA, as well as the game designer and the whole team behind this title. Of course, nothing could be played online without the dedication of a developer, and this brilliant adaptation has been done by Mizutismask. Thanks and love to her for this!
That's it for this Monday!
Enjoy a few games, and as always,
Take care and play fair!
We like to.... MOVE IT!
