Animals on Board

Today's review is of the 2016 release, Animals on Board.  For 2-4 players, it takes 15-30 minutes.

Overview
You and your friends each have an ark, and entice animals to board by offering them food crates.  Each animal of a kind has five tiles, valued 1-5.  Players start the game by drawing three animal tiles, choosing one for their ark, and placing the others in the center of the table.  An animal 'group' is created with these and additional tiles (the total number varies based on the number of player).  Each player takes a food crate and the game begins.

game at the start; image from here

In clockwise order, players choose to:
- Divide one existing group into two and take a food crate, or
- Take one existing group onto their ark, paying for it in food crates, and ending their involvement in the round.  The cost in crates = the number of animals in the group.

The round continues until all players have taken a group into the ark (unless you're the last player standing, then you can take a group or keep dividing).

At the end of a round, check- do any players have 10 animals on their ark?  If not, a new single animal group is created, taking leftover animals from the previous round and adding to the group until the tile number is reached.  Do another round until one player has 10 (or more) animals on their ark.  Then, score:
- 1 animal of a kind = number of points on the animal card (remember, tiles are valued 1-5)
- 2 animals of a kind= discard them and don't score
- 3+ animals of a kind = 5 points per animal (so four apes = 20 points)

The highest score wins!

Review
I had low expectations for this one, but was pleasantly surprised.  This game is simple but deceptively strategic and fun.  It's easy to learn but hard to master; there are multiple approaches to victory, and the kids enjoy it, too.  Plenty of meaningful choices- splitting a group is necessary at the beginning, to make groups small enough to acquire (you can't hold more than 5 food crates at a time), but making a desirable group could set up victory for another player.  This is a winner.

Rating: A