Review: Zooanctuary

To day we take a look at Zooanctuary a unique game with some beautiful artwork. In Zooanctuary you take on the role of conservationist who is tapped to create a wildlife sanctuary featuring animals that have been saved by extinction. Design your sanctuary to hold the maximum amount of animals and meet the goals on the table.

Zooanctuary is a 1-2 player card drafting game that features hexagonal tiles that feature the 5 terrain types (forest, ocean, grassland, tundra and freshwater). Each of the six sections of the hexagons have a place to put animals into your sanctuary. Each player has six tiles in their hand and draws and places one onto their player mat. When you play the tile down you can then choose to add animals to your sanctuary. The species cards have the requirements for each animal and their point value. The game is quite an interesting puzzle at this point because you have to draft a tile that will allow you to have the most dense point value on your mat and always having an eye on the face up goal cards.

I thought that the game may be very easy. I was quite wrong.

When I was first playing this game I was putting animals down left and right and I thought that the game may be very easy. I was quite wrong. The game mechanics made the multi-factor puzzle quite difficult. Later in the game it becomes difficult to get the tiles in your sanctuary the way you want and you have to start making decisions based on the information on the table (6 species cards and 3 goal cards).

...after playing the first time I immediately played it a second time.

All in all I liked this game a lot. I must have after playing the first time I immediately played it a second time. I like the mechanic of how to play the species into my sanctuary and the hard choices of how to place the terrain tiles. I recommend this game as a purchase for its beautiful artwork and its elegant game play.

Designed by: Koyomi Kawasumi

Players: 1-2

Year Published: 2021

Recommended Ages: 12+

Time to Play: 30 minutes