A while back, I wrote a review for the Ark "Extra Mix" Expansion (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/191326), promising to follow it up with a review of the base game. A dozen games later, this is that review. To avoid repeated use of the phrase “animal/provisions”, I’ll use the term “species” as a general term to refer to the cards featuring animals, fictional animals, corn or vegetables.
Overview
As noted in <PERSON> 10-Word Review (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/145706), the first word most people use to describe Ark is “cute”. Illustrated by <PERSON> of “Doris and Frank” (also known for Frank’s Zoo and Primordial Soup), the artwork is beautifully done and, well, cute.
Each card features one species of animal, “animal” or provision, and the premise of the game is that the players collectively load as many different species as possible onto <PERSON>’s ark by playing these cards into “cabins” (which each hold a maximum of three cards). Of course, players aren’t allowed to put two different species in the same cabin if one would eat the other – no corn in with the elephant and no small lizards in with the fox!
If there are no appropriate cabins for the species you wish to play, you can always spend a coin to build a new one – assuming you’ve got any coins. You start the game with three or four coins, and the only way to get more is to force the player immediately after you to open new cabins (or to load the fox onto the ark). Since any leftover coins are worth points at the end of the game, you don’t want to spend them *too* freely – but if you never spend them, you may lose out on points for loading species onto the ark. It’s a balancing act.
Thus, the theme is nicely integrated into both the gameplay and the final scoring – and the focus is on filling up the ark with as many species as possible so, if the tangential reference to <PERSON> would bother you, it’s easy to ignore. I’ve certainly never felt like this was a remotely religious game. It’s just a light 45-minute filler with cute animals that’s been a real hit with my mother, sister and me.
Bits and Pieces
Ark comes in a box that's small, but still larger than it needs to be (think Bohnanza size box).
Inside the box, you get a nicely illustrated black-and-white rulebook printed on plain paper, a thick yellow disc for tracking how well balanced the ark is, many thinner orange discs to use as coins and small wooden dinos in five colours (the same dinos as Trias uses - but red, yellow, green, blue and black). 755
There are extra coins and dinos but you'll never run out anyway (unless you add the expansion), so it's probably not really worth sorting out the "extras" from the official entitlement of 17 dinos per player.
The meat of the game is the cards. There are 54 cards featuring animals, "animals" and provisions. There are also 5 scoring cards, 5 rain cards and an Ark card.
Everything's bright and colourful, and all of the illustrations are great. This game definitely has "curb appeal"!
How to Play
Set-Up
To set up the game, four cabins are started, two on each side of the ark. The animals used to start these cabins are drawn randomly from the deck; however any animals of weight 0, 3 or 4 are discarded then shuffled back in once set-up is complete. This ensures that the ark doesn't start off tipped over!
Once this has been done, each player is dealt two starting cards and three cards are turned face up to draw from. The remaining cards are split in half and four rain cards are shuffled into one half. The last rain card goes on top of this stack of cards - then the rain-card-free half goes on top to finish the draw deck. The rain cards are important because the endgame starts when the last one is drawn (and each player gets to pick a "pet" - a hidden card that they get to score at the end of the game - when the second rain card is drawn).
Scoring
Ark is a cross between a card game and an area majority game. There are five general categories of species, each represented by a scoring card. They are Provisions, Slow Animals, Heavy Animals, Shy Animals and Useful Animals:
Notice that each scoring card shows the number of cards fitting the category. 84