Parks Wildlife Review

Parks originally took the board gaming space on a bit of a trail mainly through its absolutely breathtakingly wonderful production design. The wonderful commitment to using all recyclable components as far as was possible, cavalcade of artists that unleashed a different style on every card, and the commitment to profits from making the board game to go directly to supporting the National Parks of America. Its simple gameplay was great yet still felt as if something were lacking but what couldn’t you love?

The first expansion Nightfall built on top of what was a solid structure to make the house of Parks an even greater experience, you could finally start to plan your time along the trail. But it still left one component out in the dry. The Wild resource. Parks: Wildlife is their answer. Is it what you’re looking for? Or is it two bad news bears stacked in a trench coat?

Park Life

No, nobody writing about Parks will probably ever stop using this header. And I will again repeat what was said in the original Nightfall review – Anyone who didn’t enjoy the first game due to the simplicity of the rules won't have their opinion changed drastically by trying Parks Nightfall. Anyone who didn’t enjoy the first game due to the simplicity of the rules won't have their opinion changed drastically by just adding Parks Wildlife.

Parks: Wildlife brings with it new trail spaces, a new independent Bison meeple, some new, very specific, cards, and new gear. Does any of it actually change the overall game, adding in new mechanics like Nightfall did? No! Am I happy about that? Yes! So let’s talk about the only thing that could be considered a new mechanic and not just iterating on original mechanics: That Bison Meeple.

The big burly but lovingly rendered Bison Meeple is a meeple that sits on the main board; on the parks as a “visitor” and it gives the player and option. If the player reserves or “visits” (The game’s terminology for fulfilling the cost require by the park) the park the Bison is on; the player has the ability to do a resource exchange to a wild resource. This may be done before or after fulfilling a park and at any time during the reserving of that park. The Bison then moves along to the next park and sits on it until someone forces it to move again.

Now, this is a tiny extra mechanic added to the game and pales in comparison to Nightfall’s addition in the form of camping that not only added in new actions but made those actions time limited and one offs for the first person to do them. They were powerful incentives to run down the trail quicker, potentially missing out on a series of goodies but potentially getting some of the most powerful actions in the game. This, more often than not, is a cool little bonus for if the stars align for you on your turn or, for those whose group plays Parks often enough (It comes out every week in our group) a tiny addition that you can plan around.

The Bison adds something for experienced players or people well versed in board games, but is likely to be completely overlooked and comes out, as said previously, as a little bonus for people who don’t play Parks. For games with my group, it very much added to the sense of making out a plan whilst at the same time having to deal with the fact that someone else might want that park too cause of its easier completion from the Bison.

A tiny mechanic, but for players who love Parks it can make a big an impact as a bison actually is.

Missing Parks?

In Parks: Nightfall it was noted that the rest of the 17 missing parks from the base are finally added to the game. For art, for the completionists, and for the NPS representation this was important. The night-time art of parks was jaw dropping in its style and whilst there were three that did kinda look like palette changes or original art, it was a good way of signifying that these were cards of the expansion, instant action cards. And it’s at this point where what I said earlier comes back around again. Specifically “For players who love Parks,”

Parks: Wildlife brings just 16 extra new park cards in its box and only 6 of them have actual landscape art of parks on them (And there is another copy of Glenn Thomas’ woods cards but with slight changes in those 6). The other 10 are all rendered by artist Tom Whalen and are “iconic wildlife” cards. With them comes the twist I was expecting: parks that require a Wild resource. Parks that forced players into having to see if they would spend the time to actually grab a wild resource whereas in most games of original parks wild resource was practically ignored. The iterative game design is great, they’re taking an original component and making it impact, more involving and not something that is just often forgotten.

But then you get to the art. I like it, I do like Whalen’s style and I do like how they’re all consistent of showing the iconic animals of that specific park. But even I am disappointed that these are renderings of all the animals squashed together done on a blank background. It looks good don’t get me wrong. But I’m left with a: That’s it?

Wildlife as an expansion was obviously aiming to show off the amazing wildlife of the parks and I appreciate the commitment to the entire ecosystem of a national park, not just the pretty views. Yet Parks always sold itself on stunning production design. This expansion was really cheap and it came in a tiny box which are both excellent things. But I would’ve happily paid more for more artists for the Iconic Wildlife cards and a larger box with a unique insert, not just plastic bags to put all of the components in like so many other board games, because this way it feels as though they tried to make it on the cheap.

I think it says a lot that after discussing Parks Wildlife with my group, one player spoke up and said “Do you think we should start with a wildlife card already reserved randomly?” To be turned into basically an open or side objective when the park cards were the main players in the game of Parks, well it speaks a lot to me at least about how whilst the iterative design is great, the art and amount of cards is really disappointing.