Blue and Pink were the first to arrive and were just finishing their supper when Magenta walked in—sadly not to join in the games as she was there for a Scout meeting.  After a quick chat, she left and as Blue recapped the rules for the “Feature Game“, Zoo Break, Teal arrived and then Purple and Black.  The group had just decided to play Alles im Eimer (aka The Bucket King), when Ivory rocked up to make the full compliment of six.  Purple explained the rules with help from Black.  The idea is very simple:  each player builds a pyramid of ten bucket tokens with two of each of five colours.

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One player starts, playing a coloured, numbered, animal card and each player has to follow with the same colour and a higher number before picking up a card.  Players can play multiple cards to make the total, but they only ever receive a single replacement card.  If they can’t, or choose not to follow, they lose a bucket of that colour, and any buckets above it.  Worse, if they split their pile of buckets in two, they lose one part as players can only ever have one pile.  On the plus-side, if a player can’t play (or chooses not to), they then lead with a free choice of colour and number.  The last player with buckets still standing is the winner.  With Purple shuffling, Ivory was the first to play.

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It turns out that there are two things that are really critical in this game.  Firstly, how players stack their buckets—it is not as simple as playing to their hand strengths; the smart player also spreads the colours out a bit so they aren’t forced to take buckets from low down when the unexpected happens.  Secondly, as Ivory pointed out, like 6 Nimmt!, it is all about timing, which is something players may not have control of.  A few rounds in, Black spotted that Pink to his left still had a complete stack where bucket piles had been falling all over the place everywhere else.  So, Black made it his business to make Pink’s life difficult.  From there, it was gloves off and the buckets really started to tumble.  Purple was the first player to kick the last of her buckets over which left Blue to do what she could to damage Ivory’s largely unscathed pile.

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Black, then Blue, then Teal, all fell, leaving just Pink and Ivory to fight it out.  With Pink’s dwindling pile, it always looked an uphill task, and so it proved, with Ivory taking victory with five buckets still standing.  By this time though, Lime and Green had arrived and with eight, the group split into two tables of four, the first for the “Feature Game“, Zoo Break.  Pink was nearly lured away at the suggestion that the alternate might be Takenoko, but despite being very torn by his love of pandas, he stuck with his original panda driven choice and was joined by Blue, Lime and Black as Keepers at Bedlam Zoo.

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Zoo Break is an apparently light cooperative game where players are a team of zoo-keepers trying to prevent a mass break-out.  The mechanism is quite simple:  the active player rolls a die to decide how many Action Points they get, then they carry out actions, before drawing an Escape card and a Move card (to see what animals escape and move).  The game ends when either a dangerous animal (tiger, elephant, or dangerous snake) escapes, or when the fifth cute animal (panda, Capuchin monkey, meerkat or harmless snake) exits the zoo, or when there are no animals roaming about and all the cages are locked up.

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Although the mechanism of Zoo Break is very straight-forward and the art-work implies it is a simple kiddies game, nothing could be further from the truth.  The rule book is twenty pages long, and there are a lot of details regarding escaping and recapturing animals.  For example, when an animal escapes, it doesn’t just move to the space immediately outside its Enclosure, it moves to the nearest “open” space.  Also, different animals are recaptured using different tools which have to be acquired from the supply by the Keepers.  For example, a Net can be used to capture meerkats or monkeys, while a Leash is required for pandas and elephants, and tigers need to be Tranquilised and Stretchered home (very carefully, obviously).

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Each Keeper has a different skill.  This time, Blue had the ability to reveal snakes and capture animals from adjacent spaces (especially useful for dealing with snakes); Pink could run faster than anyone else, moving two spaces for each action point (instead of the usual one); Black, the Gardener, could move through and hide in bushes, and Lime could re-roll the die twice to try to get additional actions.  From experience with games like Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert, the key is almost always to make good use of these special powers.  So Blue suggested she made it her business to concentrate on dealing with the snakes since she could do so without being bitten.

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Pink with his Panda obsession, was always going to go after them, and everyone else was happy to let him get on with it.  Before any of that could happen though, the Keepers needed Supplies.  Pink started, and went straight to the Supply shed and started revealing tools.  These are drawn from a face down pile, but Keepers only have space to carry four tools in their backpack, so can choose only to take the ones they want.  This was probably the team’s first mistake:  instead of the few players just searching the whole Supply pile and making a discerning choice while taking as much as they could carry, players grabbed a couple of items and headed off.

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This became a problem later in the game when the Keepers realised they didn’t have tools and were now on the other side of the board.  Black who had drawn the meerkat enclosure key headed off to the far corner to lock it quickly.  Lime captured the only roaming meerkat (which had been playing in the fountain) and Black was just about to lock the cage when another one escaped.  As he didn’t have a Net, despite being in the same space as it, he was left chasing about trying to grab it unsuccessfully.  And then more meerkats got out.  So Lime, Keeper without portfolio (but with both a Net and a Leash), waged war on the disobedient meerkats, while occasionally taking time out to catch an elephant or a monkey.

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Pink, meanwhile, had his panda enclosure Key and a Leash and was trying to do something about them, but was inconvenienced by a pair of elephants, one of which knocked him flying necessitating a visit to the Medic.  Lime captured the last of the Capuchin monkeys and Blue who was close at hand with the enclosure Key managed to slam the door shut before any more got out—just as well, as the snakes were beginning to get out of hand, and as for the meerkats, well, these little blighters were causing mayhem.  Twice the Keepers had them under control before more escaped, and as they formed a long queue, the queue kept getting longer and longer as they marched inexorably towards the exit.

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Pink used the Barricade to delay the escape of a couple of pandas and the pair marauding elephants, but it failed to hold when the Broken Barricade Move card appeared.  The rhino’s occasional charges weren’t much of an issue as they were very predictable, but once animals started to get close to the exit the rhino became more of a problem as players stayed out of its path wasting Action Points.  By this time, the tigers were becoming a problem, but Pink and Black put their Tranquiliser darts to good effect and soon the zoo was littered with sleeping tigers.  Lime had a Stretcher, but never actually used it, briefly loaning it to Blue for the only tiger returned to its enclosure (and left to peacefully sleep off the after-effects, as per one of the new variants).

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There was a bit of a debate over whether it was more important to work on the rogue pandas or let them and meerkats escape and focus on the dangerous animals (in particular tigers and elephants).  Slowly but surely, however, the animals were taking over as there was a little procession of Keepers at the Medic’s tent, with only Lime avoiding injury.  Black was the only player to make use of the Train, because it didn’t really go where people wanted it to and players dealt with the issues nearest to them.  That was probably a good strategy; like it says in the advice, it is also important to lock stuff up early—the team didn’t.  They dealt with the monkeys, but the only other enclosure they managed to lock was the pandas, just before two meerkats and a cobra made a run for it in a single turn.

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Although the mass escape had caused the zoo to be closed down and Pink hadn’t actually been cuddled by a panda, everyone had really enjoyed themselves.  On reflection, working in pairs might have worked better (as with Flash Point and Escape), because then the team can do things much quicker, get on top of things and lock cages making life easier all round.  Black was curious about the variants available.  The group had played on “Standard” difficulty with two “Phew!” Escape cards (where nothing gets out), but thanks to a rules malfunction, had also included the blank cards in the Move deck which provided quite a bit of respite, so everyone had a good laugh at the idea of making the game harder.

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Despite the fact the group rarely plays cooperative games, everyone was keen to give Zoo Break another outing soon.  Zoos were popular elsewhere too—the next table had been playing New York Zoo.  This is a tile-laying game that got its first Tuesday outing only a few of weeks ago, but had been enjoyed by all.  In this game, players add pens to their zoo, populating them with animals, and building attractions.  Like Uwe Rosenberg‘s other similar games (including Cottage Garden, Spring Meadow, Indian Summer and Patchwork), it is Tetris-like but what makes this one unique and interesting is the Market.

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Players move the Marker Elephant one to four spaces round the Market, landing either on an Enclosure tile space (taking the top one and adding it to their zoo) or on an animal space (taking one or both of the animals depicted). Enclosure tiles can be placed anywhere in the player’s Zoo, then one or two identical Animals from elsewhere in their Zoo must be moved to occupy the Enclosure.  Each Enclosure can only hold one type of Animal.  When there are two or more Animals in an Enclosure together they breed when the Elephant passes the Market’s breeding spaces.

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When an Enclosure is full, all the animals are removed and the player takes an Attraction tile of their choice and adds it to their Zoo.  Attraction tiles are useful because they fill additional spaces, and at its heart, New York Zoo is a race game—the winner is the first to fill all the spaces in their Zoo.  Purple had played last time, and Green had played elsewhere, however, Ivory and Teal were new to the game and the rules needed explanation.  That didn’t take long though, and the Elephant was soon touring the market and everyone was building their zoo and adding animals.

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Purple was quick to get going, as was Green.  New York Zoo is really a tactical game, but there are a couple of broad strategies—fill the zoo with large Enclosures that are harder to fill, but occupy more space, or fill it with smaller Enclosures which are easier to fill with animals giving bonus Attraction tiles.  Purple went for the latter approach, getting some of the large attractions early in the game.  Teal however, opted for the former strategy, which is harder to get to work, but can be extremely effective, as indeed it was this time, making him the first to finish his zoo, and with no Attractions at all.  Purple was the best of the rest with for spaces left to fill, with Green a little way behind.

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The Keepers in Bedlam Zoo on the next table were still trying to get the marauding beasts back in their pens (largely unsuccessfully) so the others had to decide what to play.  Green decided to go home, and couldn’t be persuaded to stay by the opportunity to play Nidavellir despite having been very keen to play it previously.  That left Purple, Ivory and Teal, who decided to play it anyhow.  Nidavellir is a card set-collection and bidding game inspired by Norse myths. The game was created by French designer Serge Laget (who sadly passed away in January this year after a lifetime of producing some great games) and the striking black and white artwork by Jean-Marie Minguez which nicely contrasts with the coloured cardboard components.

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The story behind the game is that the kingdom of Nidavellir is under threat from the stirrings of the Dragon Fafnir and players are tasked by the King to recruit the best army to defeat it. Appropriately for our venue, the action takes places in three Dwarvish pubs where the players must use their coins to bid for the most skillful Dwarves (in a concealed auction), recruit the most prestigious Heroes, and build the best Battalion they can to defeat the Dragon.  Players hire five different professions of Dwarves into their growing army – Warriors, Hunters, Miners, Blacksmiths and Explorers.  Each player starts with five coins with the values: zero, two, three, four and five. Players place one of their coins against each pub space on their player mat.  The coins are revealed and cards are taken from each pub starting with the highest bidder.

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Ties are broken in favour of the player with the the highest jewel token (randomised at the start) and then these players swap jewels so the losing player has an advantage next time there is a draw. Once the three pubs have been resolved, players take back their coins, and place their cards in their tableaux.  At the game end, points are awarded in different ways for each group of Dwarves.  For example, Hunters provide points based on the number of cards squared, Blacksmiths score according to the triangular sequence (as used in Coloretto), while the Navigators are simply a total of the number of points printed on the card, and so on.  Each round of the game, random face-up dwarf cards are lined up by each pub (equal to the number of players) and players bid for their order of selection.

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If a player plays their “zero” coin, the values of the two unused coins are added together, the highest of the pair is discarded and a new coin of the same total is added to their stash from the Royal Treasure. Thus, players can gradually increase the value of their coins, which is useful for out-bidding others, but also adds value as the total coin hoard is added to their final score.  Hero cards, which supply additional points bonuses in a variety of ways are awarded when a player manages to have five cards of different type and then each time a new set of five is achieved. Heroes are selected from, a separate deck which allows for further point scoring combinations.  The start was a little slow as Purple and Ivory were both new to the game and had to figure out what to do.

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Teal and Ivory both started by upgrading their coins.  Ivory was the first to get a set of five cards and claimed one of the Dwerg Brothers as his Hero giving him the target of collecting the other brothers which greatly crank up the points the more that are collected.  Teal, who had played the game before, chose more complex Heroes.  Half way through the game, Purple took the King’s Hand and the King’s Great Armourer Heroes for having the most Warrior and Blacksmith cards, while Teal took the Hunting Master and Crown Jeweler (for the most Hunters and Miners respectively), leaving Ivory just the Pioneer of the Kingdom (for the most Explorers).

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The second age (played with a new deck of cards), was similar to the first, with particular tight battles around getting cards to complete sets.  Ivory had a slight advantage in this, having upgraded his coins more aggressively early in the game, and used this to get more of the Dwerg Brothers.  In contrast, Purple and Teal focused on collecting Dwarves of one kind with Teal using his Heroes to add to their “count” in particular colours when completing a set.  In the end, Purple and Teal scored best for Blacksmiths and Hunters, while Teal also took lots of points for his Miners—something he had focused on from the start.

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Ivory however, had more Warriors and having the majority of them meant he could add the value of his most valuable coin to his score.  Despite that and over a hundred points for his Dwergs, Ivory finished just shy of Teal’s winning total of two-hundred and seventy-seven.  The downside of his victory—the winner has to face the Dragon Fafnir!  All agreed it was a good game, not overly complex, but with lots of decisions to make; a game that didn’t out stay its welcome finishing within the forty-five minutes advertised (even with two first-time players).

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Learning outcome: Always keep a close eye on your meerkats.