In that spirit, I’ve included more games on this ranking than I usually do, ranking the 15 best new games I played this year. A game all about creating a peaceful garden using grids and tiles by the equally great Michael Keisling.

New York Zoo Board Game | Feuerland | BoardHoarders

One more thing of note: under less than ideal lighting, it can be hard to tell these colors apart during setup. The best social or party game of the year, Half-Truth is a trivia game with enough twists to make it work on the tabletop or even over videoconferencing.

Thus the length of the game directly depends on how hard players try to win, allowing you to even play at a leisurely pace, taking it all in on the way.

New York Zoo Review | Silver Duck Reviews | BoardGameGeek New York Zoo Review | Silver Duck Reviews | BoardGameGeek

It made me feel exceedingly clever watching my Enclosure tiles fill up each time a breeding occurred, but that level of focus ultimately lost me the game. The sky is split into 12 or 18 sectors, each of which contains just one celestial object or is empty … but one of those empty sectors has Planet X. 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. Once acquired, the animal will be added to one of your existing Enclosures or to one of your houses. You must get at least one of those correct answers right to score in that round, but you can try to get two or even all three for more points.The theme is cute, the components are nice, the rules are simple to learn (and teach), within a few minutes.

New York Zoo Review - Just Push Start New York Zoo Review - Just Push Start

If adding an animal to an Enclosure causes the Enclosure to become full, the player can then empty the Enclosure of animals (storing up to 1 of the removed animals in their houses if they have room) and then choose one of the available Attraction tiles to add to their player board. The aim of the game is to have completely filled the construction area on your board, which changes in size depending on player count. 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. A maximum of 2 animals can be added to a newly placed Enclosure, but they must come from different places.

New York Zoo is a great light weight tile laying game with a great animal resource management system that adds some weight to your decisions. In A Feast For Odin you’re having to deal with feeding people, acquiring points, and filling in your board to avoid negative points. 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. They work, and it’s not a huge deal, but I was expecting something more robust, along the lines of the Calico boards. You build those connections, then play truck cards to line up trucks along your loading side, trying to line them up so that the pipes deliver goods on to empty spaces on those trucks.

New York Zoo | Play Board Games

You can only breed in up to 2 enclosures within your zoo at a time and breeding happens simultaneously for all players. 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. We are a group of passionate individuals who share our love of board games through written and video reviews, articles, and humor, so that others can join us in our journey.While this might be a stretch, there’s no denying that it’s really really good and definitely the best zoo board game available.