Zoology
Which animal would make the best superhero? Which is the biggest prankster? Who of a cow, sloth, rhino or platypus would be the protagonist of a romantic movie? You may never have pondered questions like these before. If you have, help is available, tho' don’t ask us where - but in Zoology by Jeffrey CCH from Ice Makes these are just a few of the decisions you may have to make.
Zoology is a hidden-role game in which each player is an animal from one of the available 16 to 40 (depending on how hard you wish to make it), the catch being that you don’t know which of them you are but your fellow players do. This concept of reversed hidden-roles is nothing new – games like Hanabi (ABACUSSPIELE) and Letter Jam (CGE) being additional examples – however the way in which each player deduces the animal that they are could be...
At the start of the game, as well as being given an animal card, each player is also dealt three question cards, and on their turn a player picks a question to read aloud to everyone. All players are then allowed to discuss which animal they think best matches the criteria of the question from the animals they can see (ie: every animal except their own). The key thing to keep in mind when discussing is that at no point are you allowed to say the name of any animals that either appear on the board or on players’ cards. Forgetting this rule can certainly dispel the tension of not knowing what your animal is, as happened a few times in our plays at Boards Eye View, although it did become increasingly funny as the player realised each time they did it!
The rules for deciding the champion for each question (the animal with most votes) are quite vague, therefore we opted to have each player point at the person/animal that we thought best matched after a count of three. Once the champion has been chosen, the question card then gets placed in front of that animal as a reminder, and in a tie the card gets placed next to the animal board.
After asking a question, that player then takes another question card from the face-down draw pile along with a guess token (magnifying glass) that will be used to guess their animal from the second round onward. Play continues clockwise with each player picking a question card from their hand, everyone discussing their opinions, voting on champion animals and replenishing question cards and taking a guess token.
At the end of the first round of questioning, everyone will have a guess token and information about their animal, even if it’s simply that it wasn’t a champion for any of the questions asked. Immediately after this, players are at any time allowed to try to guess what their animal is (as indicated by turning over the first player tile) by placing a guess token onto one of the animals on the board. The other players will say if they’re correct or not; if they are, they take two victory point tokens, if not the game continues as it has before with players asking questions and gaining guess tokens, or someone else guessing what they might be. If a player does correctly guess their animal, each other player then gets a ‘second chance’ to guess what their animal is, provided they have guess tokens to use, and if they guess right they get to take a victory point token.
Once the round has ended – everyone has used their available guess tokens and/or someone has correctly guessed their animal (yes, a round could end with no-one getting victory points) – you then prepare for the next round by ensuring all players have three question cards, the guess tokens are returned atop the supply table, all animal cards are gathered, reshuffled and new ones dealt. The game ends when one player reaches five or more points, which could be in as little as three rounds.
There is undoubtedly a great deal of variety in Zoology, with a modular board that allows you to play with 16, 22, 28, 34 or 40 animals, 70 different question cards, and competitive and cooperative modes of play. What is also clear is that this isn’t just a game for adults, but equally, neither is it a game solely for children. Our belief is that it’s played at its best with a mix of children and adults - a true family game! - tho' you don’t need to be related to the other players to still have a good time. A big part of the fun of Zoology is playing with people who have different opinions of the questions to you, and hearing the various reasons as to why people have reached the conclusions they have. Some questions can be very straightforward (‘Who is the largest?’ for example) but others, like those referenced in the opening paragraph, can be much more open to interpretation.
If you’re looking for a game that will help younger players get into the board game hobby or you like playing games that involve animals, then Zoology is likely to be the game for you. It works best at a higher player count (5-6), has a lovely aesthetic courtesy of Charlie Lee’s artwork, and is simple enough that anyone from age 8 could play.
(Review by Andy Page)
