Stephanie and I went out to dinner with Mike Garrett and Amy Jo Schafer last night, and then headed back to our place and got a couple of games in. I pulled out Zooloretto, because how can you go wrong teaching a non-gamer like my wife a game that won the Spiel des Jahres? So I went over the rules and then spent forever digging out one animal type (play this with five players and save yourself some trouble). We all seemed a little out of it, and Mike seemed to be in the most control, with Amy and Stephanie taking a lot more animals than they wanted (especially Amy). I had two type in my barn, when I realized I had a pen I hadn't even used!! In the end, I filled up 3 pens and squeaked out a 2 pt win over my wife. Mike, who had seemed to be in good position throughout the game, actually came in with the low score. After that, Mike suggested Tichu. I pulled it out and started explaining it, and realized that I've never taught it before. The general mechanics aren't too hard (my wife has played Frank's Zoo, so she had some general sense of ladder games). However, we bypassed explaining the scoring and calling Tichu to make sure Amy and Stephanie had a handle on the general play of the game. After a few hands, everyone seemed to get it, but we never bothered keeping score. I had one Tichu hand, but it turned out, that I wouldn't have got it as my wife had an Ace Bomb that hand. Sheesh.
5 comments:
I actually enjoy Zooloretto for what it is. I really enjoy playing it with a bunch of cutthroat knuckleheads--man, zoos have never been so nasty! I always keep the game set up for 2 players, with two animal types always separated in a different ziploc. If I have more players, I just dump in the corresponding animals. 2 players is better than solo, but that is about it (no I have not played it solo...). I got the expansions for Christmas, but haven't played with them yet.
i also like zooloretto. though i think if i had the game, corrie would want to play it all of the time and i'd quickly lose interest.
i prefer plain ol' coloretto, the added stuff in zooloretto didn't impress me much, and i can usually explain how to play coloretto to newbies in about 3 minutes where zoloretto takes a little while longer
Mike, there is a guy at our game group that is a missionary for Coloretto, and he says the same thing. It is faster, easier to transport, simpler to explain. But I guess in the end, to a gamer, I will sacrifice a little explaining to play a game with a bit more depth to it (...and it is just a bit more...), especially if all involved will enjoy the game as much. But you are correct--the tiles/trucks/money additions are really superficial.
I, too, like Zooloretto. It has much of the tension of Coloretto while adding just enough to make it into more of a game. We played way too much Coloretto when it came out and I got really bored with it. I still would rather avoid playing it, but I really like playing Zooloretto.
I like four of the five expansions. The only one I don't like are the "Building Sites". My favorite is the "Petting Zoo" which helps add a little more cash into the game, which is important when you have four and five players.
You can read the rules to Aquaretto on the Rio Grande web site and I like what it adds to the basic Zooloretto premise. It makes it a little more cutthroat.
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