Ark Nova

On your turn you slide one of your five action cards (Cards, Build, Animals, Association, Sponsors) out of the leftmost slot and resolve it at a strength equal to its column position (1-5). All other cards shift left, so the action you just used is now weakest while the others are now stronger. The physical motion is a simple card slide plus card-play onto a hex-tiled zoo board; the dramatic moments are slotting a famous animal card into its newly built enclosure and watching appeal/conservation markers crawl past each other on the central track.

Repeatedly: pick one of five action cards and execute it. Cards lets you draft animals, sponsors, and conservation projects from a six-card display. Build places polyomino enclosure tiles on your hex zoo. Animals plays animal cards into matching enclosures, paying their cost. Association activates association workers for university partners, supporters, conservation projects, or releasing animals for big conservation points. Sponsors lets you play a sponsor card or take income. Conservation projects and animals advance the Conservation track; visitor appeal advances the Appeal track in the opposite direction. End-game triggers when one player's appeal marker passes their conservation marker; final score is the gap between the two markers (negative scores possible). 90-150 minutes.

The action-slot system is the central tension: every action you take weakens itself for next turn, so you must space out usage across an opaque 5-step rhythm. The card economy is huge (255 cards, 4-5 in hand at a time, hand-management with cost discounts via tags). Tradeoffs: appeal-rush versus conservation engine, tag-set specialization versus broad coverage, polyomino enclosure efficiency versus card timing. The option space at a typical decision is wide because the 'when to use which slot' question intersects with 'which of my hand cards is worth a slot-5 play.' Good moves are hard to identify because conservation points compound and a single well-timed Association at strength 5 can swing 12+ points.

The dominant skills are hand management and engine sequencing — knowing which card to commit to a slot-5 play versus which to discard, and reading the turn-order on the action cards two turns ahead. Secondary is tag-synergy pattern recognition: 255 cards each with discount tags, animal types, biome and continent symbols, and conservation hooks reward players who spot the multipliers. Spatial planning matters mildly (polyomino enclosure packing on a small hex zoo) but is dwarfed by the card-puzzle. Almost no opponent-reading or memory; modest arithmetic. The game tests medium-term planning and the patience to set up an engine before harvesting it.

Be the director of a modern, scientifically managed zoo — choose between maximizing visitor appeal and funding global conservation, and turn 255 named animal cards into a working ecosystem.

Loïc Billiau (animal portraits) and Dennis Lohausen (graphic design and layout) — clean, naturalistic, near-textbook animal illustrations on a green/brown earthy palette. Reads more 'BBC nature documentary' than 'fantasy painted Euro,' which is unusual for the genre and is a major part of the game's broad appeal.