Ark Nova

Run a zoo properly, which turns out to involve a great deal of paperwork.

Mathias Wigge's 2021 design for Feuerland, and the game that reset expectations for how much a card-driven euro could carry. You are building a modern scientific zoo: enclosures, animals, sponsors and conservation projects out in the field. There are more than two hundred unique animal and sponsor cards in the box, so no two zoos end up looking alike.

Five action cards sit in a row, and the further left an action sits the weaker it fires — so every action you take is also a decision about how strong your next few will be. Two scoring tracks, appeal and conservation, run toward each other from opposite ends of the board, and the game ends when they cross. The tension is that the animals which draw crowds and the animals worth protecting are rarely the same animals. Ninety minutes to two and a half hours, and heavy at 3.8.

Perfect for: Anyone who has stood at a zoo enclosure and read the interpretive sign all the way to the end.

1–4 players | 90–150 minutes | Age 14+

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