Zuuli

Ever been to a zoo that has a Unicorn before? Now you can….

1-6 players
60 – 120 minutes
Unfringed

Please note: The makers of Zuuli gave us a copy of the game so we could write this unbiased review

Our already crammed Kallax gained another lightweight fast-paced card game, this time in the form of the vibrant and fun-looking Zuuli. A lot of hype on the world wide web about this, so it must be great, mustn’t it?! (yes)

In Zuuli you are each building a zoo from cards that are passed around the table. You’ll need enclosures, upgrades and of course any good zoo has an animal or two. You’ll need Lions and Jellyfish and Anteaters and Elephants and Giraffes and Bears and Angler Fish and Red Pandas and…

…hang on it says here Unicorns?! I’m in!

How the game works

The object of the game is to score the most points by creating the best possible zoo! You’ll do that by creating habitats and inviting animals to move in. Upgrades to those habitats will help you score more points, but you must be careful to find a home for all the animals you pick, because nobody wants to send an elephant packing (seriously he was livid).

Zuuli is mostly a straightforward pick and pass game, which means each player starts with a hand of cards, from which they simultaneously and secretly choose one to play. Once everyone has chosen, players reveal the card they picked, before passing the rest clockwise to the next player. You keep doing this until all cards have been played.

Once this is done, you must place all your played cards into your zoo!

There are three types of card you can play

1. Enclosures – these allow you to place animals into your zoo. There are three types of habitat, water, grass and desert. The enclosures you will see may have one, two or all three habitats on them. These dictate which animals can be placed there. Each habitat has a capacity number (how much animal can fit there), and a satisfaction number (more on this later).

2. Animals – this is where your points are earned. Each animal has a number indicating how much space it takes up, a satisfaction number (how many points it’s worth), an indicator showing whether its fierce or friendly (though you really should be able to tell that a crocodile is fierce), and some animals have extra conditions such as scoring more if alone etc.

3. Upgrades – improve your enclosures! Upgrade cards modfiy your habitats so they can fit more animals, or add a pond to allow water animals into an otherwise deserty home, and loads of others!

When placing animals, their size values can’t add up to more than the enclosure capacity and most of the time you can’t put fierce and friendly animals in the same place (Well Fed upgrade card will allow it).

Once everyone is done, it’s time to score your zoo. For each enclosure, add up the satisfaction score for your animals and multiply it by the satisfaction number on the enclosure. You lose points for any animals that you can’t place, and they are discarded out of the game!

One very handy enclosure is the holding pen, which can only house one animal and doesn’t score any points, but is useful for keeping an excess animal!

You then move onto the 2nd and 3rd rounds, scoring after each one. The winner is the player with the most points!

Review

There was a lot of buzz about Zuuli so we kind of knew it was going to be a good game. Luckily it didn’t disappoint, as it was simple, fun and really quick to play and teach.

The artwork is simple but very effective and really nice to look at, and there’s a large enough variety to the cards in the deck to allow different strategies and therefore is perfectly replayable.

We liked the way that some animals have their own rules and conditions, meaning if you can utilise these your score can really increase. Managing to get multiple angler fish into an enclosure with a x2 multiplier and a habitat expansion card can be devastating to your opponents!

The pick and pass mechanism works really well here as it allows for some player interaction without being too “take-that”. If you happen to notice your neighbour is searching for a second red panda to complete the set, you could accidentally-on-purpose invite the one in your hand to come to your zoo instead. The other positive about it being pick and pass is that there’s very little downtime as play is simultaneous. The only point that you might find yourself waiting is if one player is really taking their time working out where to place their animals before scoring a round.

If I had to pull out some negatives, I’d say after the games we’ve played so far the expansion upgrade cards feel absolutely crucial, and how they end up distributed between players can have a big impact. Making an enclosure bigger (especially those with 2x satisfaction score) can have huge implications for scoring. If the three expansions all fall to the same player (or if only one comes out etc.) then they will surely win. But that’s the same with any card game right? A freak distribution of cards can happen to anyone!

I guess the only other remotely negative feeling we had about it is that because you don’t place animals into enclosures as you gain them (you do them all at the end of the round) there is a huge number of possibilities of where to place your animals so a little bit of our old friend Analysis Paralysis can creep in as you move things around and find yourself saying things like “can I just squeeze in one more anteater?!”.

Overall though we loved Zuuli, it’s a perfect little card game that has enough depth to keep coming to the table when you want a simple shorter game to end the evening, or to play in the pub or on the train. I dare say the way the game is made lends itself to a nice expansion or two 🙂

Get this game
https://ootgames.com/shop-all/zuuli/
Check this game out on Board Game Geek
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/338467/zuuli