When Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2 came out on PC the main selling point was always that you could build the zoo of your dreams in these great, big sandbox games. But most of us just built lion enclosures and then threw some gazelles in. Or you would build an awesome zoo just to remove all the fences and see all the little humans runs for their lives. Ark Nova reminds me a lot of those games, but then mostly the first part (actually building a dream zoo) and less the second.
What is Ark Nova?
Ark Nova is a game that combines a lot of mechanisms into one big game. You will use hand management, set collection and tile placement to build and manage you very own zoo. The goal of the game is have the most successful zoo. This includes enclosures (tile placement), animals (set collection), unique buildings and specialist, while also supporting conservation projects and releasing animals into the wild.
How to play
The goal of the game is to advance on three different tracks; appeal, conservation and reputation. The starting points of the appeal and conservation points are on opposite sides of the track and by crossing these two you will score points. You will do this through the five actions you have available to you. These five actions are represented by cards and the power of an action is determined by the slot the card currently occupies (so a card in card slot three has a power of three).
The five actions are:
- Cards: gain new cards from the card pile or the central market
- Build: build enclosures (standard, special, kiosks, pavilions) to hold your animals
- Animals: place animals into your zoo (into the appropriate enclosure)
- Association: have your workers carry out different tasks like conservation, research or partner with another zoo
- Sponsors: play sponsor cards or raise money
Every time you play an action card you will remove it from its current position and place it on the leftmost slot (one). Pushing the rest of the cards to the right, thus gaining one power. You will have to think carefully about when to play each action to optimize your power.
Placing animals in your zoo will often gain you appeal points and animal and continent icons. Having one or more of these icons in your zoo can be a requirement when playing certain animal or sponsor cards. Supporting conservation projects will gain you conservation points and research points.
Some actions during the game will advance the break track. Once this track is completed there will be a break in which the players receive income and discard cards to their hand-limit. The card market and the associations board will also be refreshed.
Once a player crosses their pawns on the appeal and conservation tracks the end of the game will start and every player will have a last turn to finish up.
How do you play Ark Nova solo?
The solo version of the game plays fairly similar to the multiplayer version. You will still have to build your zoo in the same way. The difference is that you will not use the break track. Instead you will use a small solo board. At the start of this game this board will have seven cubes on it. After every action you take you will slide the topmost cube from left to right. When you slide the last cube you will reveal the break icon and you will have a break.
During the break you gain income like regular and refresh the card market, you will also place one of the seven cubes on the association board on the lowest donations possibility (blocking it off). This means your next round will only have six actions before the break, the one after that five and so on. Once you have two cubes left you will play the final round and determine if you’ve won the game.
Points are determined the same way as in a regular game, by crossing the tracks. If you have at least zero points you win the game.
How much time does it take?
An average solo game will take me about 90 minutes including set up and tear down (using a folded space insert). Even after playing multiple games I still have to reference the rulebook every once in a while so the game time might go down a bit after repeated plays, but I don’t expect this to be much.
What I think of the game
Let me start by saying that Ark Nova is a really fun game to play, the solo is absolutely a breeze to handle and it’s more than satisfying to build all the enclosures on your map and stack your animals in colourful rows of icons. And I do think it will remain in my collection for the foreseeable future. But there is a big drawback to this game for me and that is luck. The description from the publisher about this game proudly says there are 255 unique cards in this game featuring animals, specialists, special enclosures and conservation projects. And while having this variability is great it can also cause some pretty swingy games.
One of my worst scoring games was when I never drew a sponsor card throughout the complete game, not one single blue card entered my hand and only one entered the market. This severely limited my possibilities of building a good engine and I never got on top of the game. The end result was a very sad -19 points.
My best score, on the other hand, was in part because of some absolute great luck in the beginning. In my starting hand I got a primate sponsor card and two primates without special requirements. And then when I drew some more cards I got another two primates, giving me a great little engine from the very start of the game. Resulting in my best score yet; 18 points.
Of course this is part of the fun. You can’t decide beforehand what you will do exactly and before you know it you suddenly have a zoo with only petting zoo animals and carnivores. Or your filling your entire zoo with lizards and birds. Having to strategize on the go and adjusting when needed is what makes this game challenging and fun. But when the luck is really against you it can sometimes feel like you never stood a chance no matter what you would have done.
Personally this won’t stop me from enjoying the game. But when I don’t want to feel frustrated or cheated by the card draw I might choose something else to play. However, when I want to have a fun and nostalgic ‘build your own zoo’ experience this will definitely hit the table.
Want to discover more great solo games? Read my dedicated solo board game article HERE.
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