Adam Faber
United States
Kirkland
Wa
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Today, Aesa, Pooka and I decided to play Zooloretto a try. Pooka had played it once before, but it was Aesa's and my first time. We gave the rules a once over, which were, thankfully, very easy to understand. Then we delved right in.
Each of us picked out our animal that we wanted the most and we started going for them. Aesa going for Flamingos, Pooka going for Kangaroos and I went for Pandas AND Elephants. (I just could pass up the adorable pandas! They were so cute looking!)
It was a lot of fun as we tried to work out each others strategies and find the best way to get the animals we each wanted without just handing the animals someone else wanted to them. Aesa and I started getting into these little battles with each other, trying to stick animals the other person didn't want on a desirable delivery cart. This led to me changing out various animals to try and get both more money and full enclosures.
Pooka, building her own zoo, kept getting caught in the crossfire of the battle between Aesa and I. She would get a good cart, then next turn get something less desirable. I kept looking from my zoo to everyone elses and I realized a problem. I hadn't built my expansion! I was the only one! And there were so few tiles left...
But, I sucked it up, made some sneaky moves to get a few more coins and bought my addition! And just before the last round too! The last round...in which I had no money, so I couldn't afford to move my 5 pandas (you know, the pandas that I HAD to have because they were so very cute?) out to their new enclosure. I ended up having to shunt off a few critters there from the last delivery truck just to keep me from losing even more points. I knew my zoo was doomed.
The last tiles drawn, the final deliveries made, the battle of the zoo came to a close and we counted up our score.
I scored a hefty 21 points! Pooka, 25. Aesa? Well, she eked out just slightly ahead. 26 points.
This game was a lot of fun! I had read a few reviews where people had been talking about the game lacking strategy. I, personally, feel they must be missing the point of how to play the game. There were quite a few times when we had to think about how to place our tile on the truck so as not to just hand someone the animals they wanted.
I expect that we will see this one hit our gaming table more often now that we have finally given it a try.
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Matthew Cordeiro
United States
Cumberland
Rhode Island
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Glad to hear you had a good time with Zooloretto. It's one of my favorites. I totally agree with you on the strategy part. There's a lot of nuances to the game - what truck should I place this tile on? Which truck should I take and when should I take it? How can I generate more money? How should I spend my money?
By the way, I wouldn't worry about the extra enclosure so much. I've seen a lot of games where people invest the $3 and score 2 points or less off it. For that kind of investment, you should make sure that it'll score your more points than anything else you could do with the money. Remember that removing a 2-point penalty from the barn is the same as earning 2 points on an enclosure. A well-managed zoo without the extra enclosure can still score you up to 31 points, which would have been enough to win this particular game.
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