If there is one thing board gamers like to do, its ranking games. Check out any board gaming channel on YouTube and you will find a list of people’s top 100, culminating in them choosing their ultimate number one.
As an avid fan of board games and ranking myself, it always gets me thinking what is, above all else, my favourite game.
It’s a difficult question, as there can be so many factors in play. Your favourite games can depend on what mood you’re in, who you play it with, and how recently you’ve played it as we are all susceptible to the curse of recency bias.
But for me, ever since one fateful day when I brought it for wife as a birthday present (yes my favourite board game is one I don’t TECHNICALLY own as she likes to remind me), my favourite board game has been never changing.
Even with worthy contenders like Sky Team, The Thing, Pandemic Legacy and Thunder Road: Vendetta coming along, there has been one game that I consistently love, whatever mood I am in and whoever I am playing it with. That game, is Ark Nova.
So in this blog/fan appreciation post, I will be detailing why Ark Nova is my favourite board game, and why all others will have a hard time toppling this zoo building juggernaut.
What is Ark Nova?
Ark Nova was released in 2021, designed by Mathias Wigge. In this Eurogame, you and up to three other players look to build and manage a zoo, one that isn’t just a great place to visit, but also one that cares about conservation and science.
Throughout the game you play cards into your tableau to accumulate three distinct scoring points. Appeal points, indicating how appealing your zoo is to your customers, reputation points, (or hat points as we call it in my home), and the all-important conservation points, the work your zoo does in the conservation efforts of the animal world.
You also have in front of you a Zoo Map, which you fill with all different enclosures to house your animals, the workers you send on association and conservation missions, and a whole host of other mechanics.
Finally you have 5 actions, one of which you can do on each of your turns, and what you can do with these actions is dictated by where that card is in front of you. If its in the number 1 spot, its likely you can do less with it, but in the fifth position you can get its maximum effect. Once you have used that action, generally it goes down to the number one place, and everything else moves up one.
These actions are build, association, sponsor, animals, and cards, all of which you can upgrade through the course of gameplay, and that you need to smartly use each turn to slowly build up your appeal, conservation and reputation points to win the game.
While everything I said might sound simple enough, it hides the fact that Ark Nova, while gorgeous and something that you would think would appeal to adults and children alike, is in fact a hard, complicated game.
Zoos aren’t for everyone
What Ark Nova has taught me is that if running a zoo is anything like this game, then it’s a bloody complicated affair.
There are lots of reasons why its my favourite game of all time, but I won’t shy away from the fact that Ark Nova isn’t for everyone. It’s a long, complicated to get to grips with kind of board game, that could put off a lot of non-gamers, despite its delightful theme.
Even if your children or your parents are big animal lovers coming out of a wonderful day at Edinburgh zoo, Ark Nova isn’t something you can whip out on a rainy Sunday afternoon and teach your Mum and Dad. ‘You know how you guys love monopoly, well here’s Ark Nova!”
It requires time, patience, concentration, a general understanding of modern board game mechanics, and ultimately a love of strategy. The setup takes ages, the rule book is beefy, and when me and my wife first started reading through that hefty tome we found ourselves a little overwhelmed.
And then, we started playing.
But Ark Nova is for me
Within the first thirty minutes to an hour of our first Ark Nova session, we both realised this game could become our favourite. Everything about it just worked.
The smooth as silk gameplay was fantastic. The slow building of your zoo, and how you can make different cards work together made it this tactical tableau building game with a satisfying loop. Turns soon became, sharp, snappy and best of all impactful.
After a few turns of not being able to accrue too many points, you soon start building combos with different cards, you might have a sponsor card that rewards you every time you play a European animal to your zoo, so you focus on that, maybe you want more predators, and this enriching experience of seeing your different point systems build up makes the game so joyful to play.
A bit like a Wingspan you’re not particularly getting in each other’s way as well, especially when played with two players. For some they might miss that competitive edge, which can be found if you play with 3 or 4 players, but for me anyway there is nothing wrong with just building up your zoo, comparing them on games end and just seeing who was able to get the win. It’s the kind of game that even in defeat, you will have had a delightful ride.
It does take at least three hours, more if you have extra players or are learning the game, but that only makes this game better. Like I said previously you do need concentration and patience, but Ark Nova rewards you for your persistence. Checking out what you have managed to build, discussing whether or not you think your zoo would be worth visiting is part of the fun, and it does a tremendous job implementing its theme into a game better than I would say any other I have played.
And I haven’t even spoken yet about the bloody gorgeous cards. Firstly there is a tonne of them. As someone who struggles to shuffle the best of times Ark Nova tests me. However it leads to having a whole host of different animals you can play into your zoo, which as an animal lover is perfect. The reveal when an African Elephant or a Panda comes out of the deck and the ooos and aahhs it generates is so ridiculous but so brilliant. You will often find you decide to just completely go against the gameplan you had meticulous built the last couple of hours because you just really want that animal in your zoo.
The cards as well have facts and information about the animals, including whether or not the animal is endangered, and I think this is just fantastic for a game that is about a sometimes touchy subject and the morales behind zoos.
The fact that potentially the biggest way to win Ark Nova is through conservation not only brilliantly encapsulates the theme its trying to stress, but also wonderfully plays into this potentially murky area at times, helping to stress the important work zoos can play in conservation of wildlife around the globe. For me and lots of others this is important, and I am glad Ark Nova emphasizes this over just trying to place as many animals in your zoo as you can.
Different Zoos for Different You’s
What I love most about Ark Nova, and what the game really reveals over multiple playthroughs, is that each game is entirely different from the last.
Lots of great board games can have the slight flaw that there is one main strategy to win, so that after a few games of it you might start to find each play kind of flows into the next. This isn’t the case for Ark Nova.
Firstly, with the variety of different Zoo Maps that come in the base game, you can immediately start with a different initial gameplan. Maybe the initial conservation project cards that are drawn are completely different from your last game. Previously the focus was on predators and animals from Australasia, this time its about reptiles and releasing animals into the wild.
The initial cards you started with might be totally different to your last. (And remember there are LOTS of cards).
Or maybe after having a massive focus on just getting the largest, most appealing animals into your zoo last game, this time you decide you know what, I am going to be all about birds.
What is truly great, is that every strategy can be a winning one. If the right cards come up at the right time, or you adjust accordingly depending on what’s drawn or the game state, you can make an entirely different zoo to your last one, and you still might win.
It has led to Ark Nova being the one big board game I own to get multiple plays throughout the year, and I can honestly say I have never once used the same strategy twice. Last game I engaged for the first time with the releasing into the wilds mechanic, and I won despite the fact I had a whole host of empty enclosures!
That’s all before you have even added to it with the wonderful Marine Worlds expansion which somehow manages to add even greater variability without overly complicating the rules, and the additional zoo maps you can buy adds even more depth to a game that already feels like a bottomless pit of variety.
An Ark de Triomphe
Ark Nova is simply put, my favourite board game of all time, and it will be hard pushed for something to beat it.
I might have had better individual experiences with certain games, others might have been technically more satisfying or competitive, but Ark Nova’s greatest strength is its consistency in always producing a fantastic, wonderful experience that I go back to time and time again.
If you can give it the time and concentration it needs, I do not think there is a better, more complete game out there, especially if you’re an animal lover like myself.
It’s number 3 currently on Board Game Geek so I am hardly alone in my opinion, but for anyone who calls themselves a board game hobbyist, Ark Nova is a must have for your collection, and I challenge any game to try and come knock it off its perch as my favourite of all time.
Paul Websell is a freelance contributor for Zatu who spends his time either playing board and video games or talking about them. While he’s not on social media, you can view his other blogs right here on Zatu!
