Gamehelpnewyorkzoo

Overview

Be the first player to fully construct your Zoo

Pieces

Pieces can be rotated or flipped (mirrored) when you are placing them.

Pieces do NOT have to be played adjacent to each other.

Pieces cannot overlap or overhang the board.

Use the question mark piece to test placement before committing, if desired.

Turn

The player turn has 3 steps

Move Elephant

Action

Breed

Move Elephant

Move the elephant at least 1 space clockwise around the zoo, for the maximum spaces based on your player count (3/4).

Orange Breeding spaces and Empty Tile spaces are NOT spaces and should be jumped over

Blue Acquisition spaces and Occupied Tile spaces DO count as movement spaces for the Elephant

Action

Depending on where you make the Elephant finally land, but not the spaces it travels through, two things might happen

Take the tile from a tile space or the animal from the animal space

After which, if you now have an enclosure full of animals, you exchange all the animals for an attraction

Breed

If the elephant passed over one of the orange breed spaces, although these aren't moving spaces, they do trigger the breed phase for ALL players just before your turn ends

If breeding fills an enclosure, that player may exchange the animals for an attraction

Animal Specifics

Animals can only be placed with animals of the same type

You have 3 barns which can each store 1 animal each, the barns can hold the same or different animals

Each time you add to an enclosure, a maximum of 2 animals can be added

If you add only 1 animal to an enclosure, you can take a second from your barns as long as they are the same animal

Enclosure Specifics

When taking a new tile, it MUST straight after be occupied by 1 or 2 animals

The animal(s) you occupy it with can come from your Barns or previously placed enclosures

If taking from an enclosure, it must have at least 2/3 animals in it, as you cannot fully vacate an enclosure

As above, they must both be the same animal if placing 2

If you cannot comply with ALL the above rules, you cannot take a tile and must move the elephant to a blue Acquisition space instead

Acquisition Specifics

Acquisition spaces depict 2 animals you may gain

However, instead of this, you always have the choice of just gaining 1 animal but of the type you desire

The new animal(s) can either be placed in a vacant barn, an enclosure with the same animal type, or a vacant enclosure (which was previously completed)

If you cannot place an animal, you cannot have the animal. However, if you can place 1 but not the other, or can place 1 or the other but not both, you get that one animal.

Attraction Specifics

Immediately when an enclosure is completely full of animals it is scored

All animals are discarded, but if you have a vacant barn, you may if desired keep 1 of them back in the Barn

After which, gain an Attraction

Important note: if you gain 2 animals, make sure to place 1 first, check for Attraction trigger, then place the other.

Breeding Specifics

This is triggered by passing the breeding spaces with the elephant. However, fully complete the other steps before performing the breeding.

Breeding happens for ALL players, not just the player who triggered it

Breeding occurs for the depicted animal only

If a player has at least 2 of that animal in an enclosure and there is space, they gain 1 more of that animal to that same enclosure

If a player has 2 enclosures where this applies, both enclosures gain 1 more animal

If a player has 3+ enclosures where this applies, they can only choose to breed in 2 of them

After which, there is an attraction check (note that an attraction check doesn't happen after each placement, but after all breeding is finished)

A player does not have to take the full breeding they are entitled to if they wish to skip it

Bonus Breeding

In a 2 or 3 player game only, each player is entitled to a bonus breeding whenever breeding is triggered, if and only if they had at least one normal breeding. Bonus breeding allows you to choose an additional enclosure containing an animal type that is NOT the type that was bred on the breeding action to breed. This enclosure for Bonus Breeding must still be eligible to breed, i.e., must contain at least 2 animals.

Game End

The game ends when a player completely fills their board with tiles

If this happens during Action phase, the player who achieved this immediately wins!

If this happens during Breeding phase, it is possible for multiple players to fill their zoo at the same time. If so, the player between them who has the most animals wins!