New York Zoo

Product Information

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. 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.

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

In New York Zoo, a 1-5 player eurogame designed by Uwe Rosenberg and published by Feverland, you take on the role of zoo designers. You are competing to build New York Zoo? Or a part of New York Zoo? Ok, it’s not clear, but you’re building something Zoo like. New York isn’t relevant, it could be called Cromer Zoo or just Zoo Builder. Your goal is to place geometric tiles, representing animal enclosures or attractions, onto your player board until all the spaces are filled. This is how you play it. Set-Up 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 Ultimately though, we were a little underwhelmed. Like the sardonically gazing animals on the cover of the box, we felt a little detached, cynical, and nonplussed when someone completed their zoo and won. Unlike a lot of other games where you’ve building a little scene in front of you, there’s just not that joy of looking down at the end of the game, regardless of whether you win or not and being happy with what’s been made. You’re not going to be greeted with a full zoo of interesting animals, walkways and otherwise like you may expect. Instead, if you’ve been playing efficiently, there’s probably a mess of amusements and a lot of empty pens – as you return your animals for those bonus tiles.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. 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!

Battle of the Polyominoes - Bitewing Games Battle of the Polyominoes - Bitewing Games

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. 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. I do wish sometimes there were some point-scoring objectives, to deepen the strategic elements. I’d love to have certain restrictions on where attractions could be placed for scoring points, for example. Or trying to end your game with an enclosure full of Meerkats. I suppose this is always something you could house rule if you were trying to make the game more challenging for yourself. It is possible that adding one (or both) of these animals to your Enclosure tiles might cause those tiles to become full. To avoid duplication, I’ll talk about what to do when this happens in the next section. BreedingThe 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