I heart manatees! By the time you finish playing this game you will heart manatees too! I Heart Manatees is a fun engaging tile laying game for every skill level. It is very accessible for novice board game players and there is plenty of strategy for advanced board game players as well. If you have 30 minutes to have some manatee tile laying fun, this game is for you!
OVERALL THEME
I Heart Manatees is all about rescuing manatees from the ocean and adding them to your habitat. Add their favorite food and fishy friends to score points. Amongst all this manatee cuteness and love, there is a menacing shark that players can use to sabotage others! The them is cute and quaint and a lot of fun to dive into!
I heart manatees! By the time you finish playing this game you will heart manatees too! I Heart Manatees is a fun engaging tile laying game for every skill level. It is very accessible for novice board game players and there is plenty of strategy for advanced board game players as well. If you have 30 minutes to have some manatee tile laying fun, this game is for you!
OVERALL THEME
I Heart Manatees is all about rescuing manatees from the ocean and adding them to your habitat. Add their favorite food and fishy friends to score points. Amongst all this manatee cuteness and love, there is a menacing shark that players can use to sabotage others! The them is cute and quaint and a lot of fun to dive into!
ARTWORK
The artwork of I Heart Manatees is focused mainly on the manatees. However, there are some nice touches to the ocean tiles to help immerse you into the theme. The ocean tiles are a bright blue with some nice reflection details added in. There are bright beautiful colors for the iconography of the game to keep that oceanic tropical feel, and there is a beautiful 3d Bull Shark component that looks menacing and ready to sabotage! Now of course, the centerpiece of the game art is the manatees! There are adorable manatee components to the game that do not disappoint. The designer used manatee heads, like you would see popping up above the ocean with adorable and beautiful details.
OVERVIEW OF GAMEPLAY
The overall gameplay is for I Heart Manatees is very easy to follow. Players will take turns, moving clockwise around the table until the game ends. The game play is quick and fun while players place tiles, move manatees, send sharks to block other players and take photos to score extra points
On a turn, a player will:
1. Pick a Tile from the ocean board: in this step players will take any bottom tile from any of the 4 columns on the ocean board
2. Add the tile to their habitat: in this step players will add the new tile to their habitat by placing it edge-to-edge with at least one other tile. The touching tiles must match – have the same icon or no icon at all.
3. Take the Ocean Action of the column the tile was taken from: the icon at the top of each column indicates what action is taken. The 4 Ocean Actions that can be taken are:
a. Rescue – add a manatee to your habitat
b. Swim – move a manatee in your habitat
c. Photo Cards – score points for taking great photos of your habitat
d. Shark Sabotage – move the bull shark to another players habitat and perform action from shark sabotage die.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I played I Heart Manatees and had so much fun. It took about 40 minutes for 2 players and we giggled and laughed every time we moved manatee heads around our habitat or sent the shark to sabotage. Overall, I had the best time playing this game. Between the adorable them and the easy gameplay, this is really a joyous game to put on the table for game night. When you need to lighten the mood, bring out I Heart Manatees and it will certainly heart you back!
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
80%
