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Did you know that Zatu now act as a fulfilment partner for upcoming crowdfunding campaigns? They need to be pretty special to get Zed’s seal of approval, but Nice To Know Animals has passed the test!
As Nice to Know Animals is currently in prototype form, the rules, artwork, and everything in between are subject to tweaks and changes. But we have been lucky to preview the current iteration in order to let you know a little more about it. Please do just bear in mind that elements could change before it is available to purchase.
For 1 – 6 players aged 8+, Nice To Know Animals has players competing by taking on the role of zoologists, intent on discovering and learning all about the amazing wildlife on our planet. With games lasting around 15 minutes per player, it’s a quick but interesting voyage of ecological discovery!
Super easy to set up, the main actions in Nice To Know Animals are:
1. Travel;
2. Research; and
3. Complete secret quests
Just like the successful continuation of the natural world, all the steps in this game are dependent upon each other. To complete the quests and gain victory points, you first need to travel to where specific species live. Once there you’ll need to study them by exchanging animal cards for research tokens. Alternatively, you can perform research by paying accumulated research tokens to gain animal cards. The more animals you can research, the further your counters move along the endangered and common species tracks on the board that comes inside the box.
When the end of a track is reached, the game ends and the winner is the zoologist with the most knowledge! Okay, it’s actually the player with the most points. But what do research and study make? In Nice To Know Animals it is definitely points!
As you play the game collecting and discarding animal cards in order to fulfil quests and move along the tracks, you’ll be able to discover the most interesting facts. For example, Pangolins roll up into a tight ball and use their thick scaly skin like armour when threatened! And Llamas who spend too much time with humans can mistakenly believe us woolly-free bipeds are actually rather funny looking llamas too! It’s a voyage of discovery of ecology!
It's obvious that the designers have a passion for conservation. The card art is lovely, and the iconography is easy to understand. No mean feat given there are 82 different species spread across more than 180 cards in the box! The wee wooden tokens are also super cute, and I hope they stay in the finished product.
Speaking of easy, the rule book is well written and make the game easy to pick up and play, as well as to teach to others. The value of this shouldn’t be underestimated. Rule books that are poorly written can really negatively impact gaming experiences.
The gameplay in Nice To Know Animals is also light enough for younger players to get stuck in straight away. There’s a variation on the standard rules set which helps with this. And the decision space as to what to do when is never overwhelming or overly complicated. You just need to make sure you are saving up as travel can be an expensive business in Nice To Know Animals. This can slow the start a little, but once you can afford it, you’ll be criss crossing continents with no problem. As a society we are moving away from transport that harms the environment, so perhaps Nice To Know Animals is encouraging essential travel only! The pursuit of knowledge is likely to be considered one of the more acceptable if essential reason to fly.
And if solo gaming is your bag, there’s an AI (named “the Artificial Animal”) to compete against which will challenge you on 5 different difficulty levels.
We are glad to have played Nice To Know Animals and we each definitely came away from the table knowing interesting things about different species. Certainly things we never could have guessed and are likely to be very useful in pub quizzes and general knowledge/trivia games going forwards!