Zooloretto

Zooloretto, winner of the Spiel des Jahres in 2007, boardgame version of Coloretto. I never was interested in buying this, after reading the rules, but I was interested in trying it out.

The game is quite similar to Coloretto. On your turn, you draw an animal tile to add to a truck (which has 3 spaces), or you take a truck with animal(s). Your zoo only has limited space for animals. You don't want to have too many types of animals, and you want to fill up your enclosures as much as possible. Other than animals, there is also money, and hawker stalls. You can spend money to rearrange your zoo, buy animals from others, send away animals, or expand your zoo. Hawker stalls give 2VP and also VP for enclosures with too few animals. There are some other rules, like fertile animals (male + female) giving birth to baby animals.

My zoo in a 2-player game. See how my cheetahs and my pandas have produced offspring (the round animal tokens).

My zoo in a 3-player game. I used elephants to fill my zoo expansion on the right. I have too many zebras for my own good.

I played a two player game and a three player game, and I find that it is much much better with three. Maybe it will be better with even more players. I find the 2 player game to be rather lame. Too easy to avoid unwanted animals. Having played this game twice, I feel that I prefer Coloretto. The additional elements in the boardgame version doesn't really add that much fun. I prefer the simplicity of the card game and the tough decisions that it delivers so succinctly. Such a naughty game at times. If I ever play Zooloretto again I hope to try it with 4 or 5 players.