I was given the chance to have a playthrough at the upcoming “Ark Nova – lite” game, Sanctuary. Releasing at Essen this year, it seeks to shorten a game of Ark Nova a bit, but I can attest there’s still a fair bit of meat on this animal to keep it in middleweight gaming territory. Continue to the bottom for a tiny Ark Nova (possibly for you) surprise….
Sanctuary goes for middleweight class by focusing almost exclusively on the actual zoo animals (well, their enclosures.) Everyone cycles around taking and placing zoo tiles representing animal pens or other buildings (pens come complete .) Players start with a blank zoo player mat with hexagonal spots to place zoo tiles. Players add tiles to their board (slightly less than one per turn) trying to score points by making the best zoo possible. There are goal tiles and bonuses selected each game which can drive players towards specific strategies and can give a few passive upgrades/improvements. The game ends when a player completes every goal, completely fills their zoo map, or (very rare) the draw pile runs out of tiles.
