OUR REVIEW

Build an Ark

Ark & Noah

House and feed animals

The Ark and the Deluge are a much-discussed topic, as it is said that the remains of the boat have been found in East Anatolia on Mount Ararat in Turkey. Interpretations of the Noachian flood tend to suppose a tsunami or a tidal wave, but why a family would have built at exactly that time in order to save animals will in all probability remain a secret of the Old Testament.

Many of my esteemed readers know that at that point in a review I like to dig around in history to find something worthwhile knowing, but on topics which touch believes, and in this case the Faith of two religions, I pass up. Today one much too quickly treads on somebody’s toes when dealing with the subject of someone’s faith. So, let’s go and take a look at the game:

The ark is made up from four parts, for each player you use one part and combined for the ark. Each player at the start of the game is given his worker and 3 boards that are used for ship’s walls or cage’s walls, 2 black cubes which are placed into the outer wall of the ship/ark for tar, and 2 food tiles, because we need to feed to house and feed our animals.

Then each player draws one male and one female animal from the respective bags. Should a player manage to find a matching pair at this point in the game, he must put back one of them and draw a new one. Should a corresponding pair be located with different players, they are not given back and are allowed. Should there be fewer than four players, some animals are removed from play.

In addition to the ark there is an action board. On this board seven different actions are depicted and this board also shows the round track. Players decide on a starting player and set out their markers in the established sequence.

Each round comprises two phases, choice of actions and resolving of actions. The player whose worker is placed furthest left on the action board takes his worker and places him on one of the seven actions, the other players follow suit. Each action can only be chosen by one player and actions that are not selected in a round are upgraded with a bonus victory point to create a bigger incentive to choose this action in the next round. The maximum bonus for any action is four points.

With the exception of the fourth action, which is the one colored green, each action has a spot for the player who chose it and one spot for all the others: The active player for instance acquires 3 tar cubes and all other players acquire one tar cube. This also goes for the food tiles; in case of the boards the active player acquires four boards, and all other players acquire only two boards. One action allows the active player, in case that four players are participating, to draw 2 male and 2 female animals from the bags. He can choose one of them, the other players follow suit in the order of sequence of play.

At this point the rules have, well, not exactly a weak spot, but are a bit cumbersome, because the rule here is explained a bit circumstantial with an example: The point in question is the sequence of play. You play always from action 1 to Action 7, that means, when Action 6 is implemented, the first player to do so will be the one who did chose Action 7, then the other players follow suit in the order they did choose actions 1 to 7. I mention it explicitly because we did have a few discussions about this.

In Action 4 only the player choosing it may choose either a victory point, a board, a food tile or a tar cube and, in addition to this, may swap to board in the ark or draw three tiles and put back into the bag three tiles chosen from your own supply and the ones from the bag, it must be one from your animals and two from the bag Animals whose partners are already on the table somewhere, even with other players, may not be swapped. To represent this better the animal tiles are colored black/white at the back side and you simply turn them over when both partners of a pair are present on the table.

In Action 6 you continue work on the ark. The player who chose this action can place eight boards or cubes of tar into the ark. Tar can only be placed at the outer walls of the ark/ship and can only be placed when the location is adjacent to two boards already placed and still empty. The following players may only place five boards or five cubes of tar.

For each board or cube of tar that you placed you earn one victory points. How you set down the walls of cages inside the ark is left to everybody’s own choice, there is only one restriction: Completed caves cannot be separated into smaller compartments, and that useless boards in completed cages are removed. If a cage bordering the outer wall of the ark is completed when only the walls are build or if the spots for tar must be filled, too, for the wall to be completed, is not stated in the rules. This also needs to be established/decided at the start of a game.

Now we will take a look at the seventh and most important action of the game, it is the action with which you acquire most victory points: Loading of the Ark. The active player earns eight loading points for loading, all other players earn five loading points. In completed cages, where you own a minimum of one wall, you can put one food tile in each square of the cage which earns you one victory point per tile. In order to be able to load animals into the ark you must comply with certain prerequisites:

In addition to the fact that the cage must be complete and must have a food tile in each of its squares the cage must also be of the exact size necessary for the animal pair. The size of the cage is noted on each animal tile. Furthermore, there can only be one animal pair in a cage; there is one exception – all animal pairs marked with Zero, they are the so-called small animals and one additional pair of such small animals is allowed in each cage.

To load animals into the ark you also must spend loading points according to the size of the animal. The size for the number of loading points is equal to the size of the cage. Of course, the corresponding male and female animals must be present on the table, even with another player. For animals that come from other players you need not spend loading points. The cage must, as already mentioned, show at least one board in the color of the active player.

The victory points for animals are noted on their tiles and are always double the amount of their size. The player, who delivered the animal, scores the points, too. For the cage walls of the cage actively involved each player who has a board in the cage scores one victory point. Should there be tar cubes integrated into the outer wall then the active player scores one victory point per tar cube that is involved.

Loading of small animal pairs into the ark does not earn you victory points, but does not cost you loading points, either. The points for walls and for tar cubes are scored again by all players participating in the cage.

The rounds marker is advanced one spot and, starting with the player whose worker is situated leftmost on the action board, the next round begins. When you have either played 10 complete rounds or when all outer walls of the Ark have been completed, the game ends. For this game-end condition the outer walls need not completely filled with tar.

In the case of all outer walls being completed the game ends as soon as the last board for the outer wall is placed. Each player, starting with the player having fewest victory points, may place food tiles into cages, even when the cage does not show a board of his color. Then, again starting with the player who is in last position for victory points, each player can try to load animal pairs into the ship, again also in cages where there is no board of this player’s color. In this phase you cannot score any victory points.

Then there is a final scoring: The player with most boards in the outer walls of the Ark scores five points. Each player loses one point for each board, tar cube or food tile that he has in his stock on the table. Furthermore, you lose points for the animals that you have still in your stock, the size of the animal equals the number of victory points you lose. You win with most victory points, in case of a tie there are joint winners.

Designer Stefano Groppi has, after his first design of Florenza, provided a good, even maybe a very good, second game. Ark & Noah is featuring a self-explaining very fast access and even after a number of games played you are not bored, because due to the action board you depend on the choices of your predecessor and so you must constantly adapt your strategy.

This is what makes the game very varied. One of the very few points to criticize are the rules, which in two cases only explains itself rather cumbersome using examples and furthermore are quite a litany. For my part, I must confess, I have overlooked both points quite a few times when reading the rules.

The boards for the walls could be thicker, you rather feel as if you build walls from balsa wood instead of oak wood. And apart from all this, I am still wondering why Japhet, one of Noah’s sons, looks like Anakin Skywalker from Clone wars, the Animated Characters film based on Star Wars. At least this was the first association of my children when they opened the box for the first time.

The graphics are solid, that persons have rather angular faces is only a matter of taste and without any influence whatsoever on the game. Especially mentioned must be the complexity of the game in some phases of the game; at some points one must try to pay attention to quite lot of things at the same time. Do I have enough loading points to take feed to the cages, should I come to an agreement with the owner of the other half of the pair and is it allowed to do so? Who owns the walls in the cage and – especially important – is one of them mine?

Another very important question is, which parts do I have left over at the end that will score negative points and what is the sequence of play? All this cannot be mastered in the first game and you easily need a second one. This second one took us 90 minutes, which was 30 minutes more than the first one, surprisingly, but we did a lot more pondering 

Some of you might think that one is played by the game but this is not so or at least not in an amount that it is a deciding factor in the game. As in all games with similar mechanisms it can happen that the game kind of upends itself because players keep doing destructive moves. But when someone wants to derange or destroy a game, there aren’t many that are proof against this.

Due to a smaller ship, reducing the number of animals in the game and in drawing animals the game is interesting also when two and three people are playing.

What I do like especially about the game is the positive topic. We save animals and that is independent of religion, but is a topic that is not subjugated to any gender or age. So it is a game ideally suited to families because even those that implement bad tactics and are not involved in determining the winner do still save animals.

I liked it, my family was enthusiastic and I will have to lay hands on the game again, because they have all asked already when we will be saving animals from the evil waters again.

Kurt Schellenbauer

Players: 2-4

Age: 8+

Time: 60+

Designer: Stefano Groppi

Art: Ivan Zoni, Paolo Vallerga

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Placentia Games 2012

Web: www.placentiagames.it

Genre: Building and worker placement game

Users: For families

Special: 2 players

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr it

In-game text: no

Comments:

Clear rules

Rules for two levels of difficulty

Size of ship, components and rules also for 2 and 3 players

Tactical depth

Compares to:

Simple worker placement games with some resources management

Other editions:

Elfin Werks, USA

My rating: 6

Kurt Schellenbauer:

Very well done implementation of the deluge topic from the Old Testament. Persons not of Judaic or Christian Faith, too, will have fun in building cages and the ark to save pairs of animals.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 1

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0