Ark Nova Board Game Review

Overview

Ark Nova is a game about making the most prestigious zoo. You accomplish this by balancing the act of ecological conservation while maintaining an appealing zoo that people want to visit.

When we play games, we often view them through the lenses of our past experiences. The more games you play, the more comparisons you can make. We like to pretend that individual games exist in a vacuum, but nothing in life truly does. I’m bringing this up because I put off buying Ark Nova for a long time because I felt like I had already played it under another name. That name is Terraforming Mars.

You can find a video version of this review on YouTube!

Terraforming Mars is a game I awarded my Golden Shield. But in my many plays, since, it’s slowly fallen out of my favor. That happened because I have developed issues with the game that I think Ark Nova improves upon. In fact, Ark Nova has largely replaced Terraforming Mars for me. Nothing in my review of Terraforming Mars is false or incorrect, but my perspective has since shifted, changed, or evolved.

Because biases and past experiences constantly reflect and shape our present thoughts and feelings, I can’t review Ark Nova without comparing it to Terraforming Mars. Any attempt to do so would be dishonest on my part. I can, however, use those comparisons to springboard my thoughts on why Ark Nova works for me.

Gideon’s Bias	Ark Nova Information
Review Copy Used: No	Publisher: Capstone Games
Number of Plays: 10+	Designers: Mathias Wigge
Player Counts Played: 1, 2 & 4	Player Count: 1-4
Fan of Genre: Yes	Genre: Engine Building, Card Management, Tile Placement
Fan of Weight: Yes	Weight: Heavy
Gaming Groups Thoughts: Loved It	Price: $74.95

Presentation

Ark Nova is a great-looking game. The cards use actual real-world photos that look great, and the iconography and layout are also clean and intuitive. The main board looks nice and is double-sided with the sole purpose of giving you a different way to orient the display cards, which is pretty nifty.

You get a handful of double-sided zoo maps. These maps form the area where you can build your zoo enclosures and attractions. A handful of them are for beginners, a few others for intermediate players, and then once you know the game, there’s a variety of asymmetric maps featuring unique powers. There is also an association board that houses various tokens and gameplay elements

Ark Nova features a large variety of colorful and great-looking tokens, as well as some more generic cubes and meeples. You also get a variety of tiles of various shapes that make up the zoo enclosures. Ark Nova looks great on the table and is full of vibrant colors in both its components and the nature of its’ real-world photos.

More than pure aesthetics, however, is the overall clean nature of its design. While there is some initial visual overload, the various iconography ends up being pretty simple and intuitive for both, playing and understanding the game. Plus, there is a handy cheat sheet that lists them all.

That said, the rulebook is clearly written, but learning the game is somewhat of a steep endeavor. While the actions themselves are relatively simple, there are numerous little exceptions to them. You have to understand them all before you can ever take your first turn.

The rulebook describes each action in great detail but has little to no onboarding. There is an entire page for almost every action, and you’re going to have to read all of it upfront. Once you get over that initial hump, Ark Nova flows gracefully.

For a heavy game, however. Ark Nova is pretty quick to set up and put away and features some nice token trays that help, while also keeping things organized during play.

What I Like About Ark Nova

The Action System

The action system in Ark Nova offers a deep decision space of strategic planning with room to pivot as the game advances when other players make their own choices. You only perform one action per turn, and these actions are divided by five action cards. The farther to the right an action card is, the stronger its effect.

For example, if you want to build a large 5-hex enclosure, your build card has to be on the number five slot. Once you complete an action, you move the corresponding card to the number one slot and shift everything else to the right. While this seems restrictive at first, it actually amplifies the game’s strategy because the actions aren’t contained in a vacuum.

You have to factor in the cards in your hand and the display, what partner zoos and universities might be available on the association board, where the Break token is, what conservation projects or sponsors are available, and your own long-term strategy. There are also ways to manipulate the cards through abilities. The most common one is the X token, which allows you to use an action as a higher rank.

Should you boost your card’s action to snag that powerful elephant from the display before anyone else? Do you play an animal in a larger enclosure than it needs, or wait until your build card is high enough to build a different enclosure? Should you use the Association action while it’s on the fifth slot and claim a conservation award early, or wait until you can get a larger bonus at the risk of someone else getting it first?

While the intricacies are too much for me to detail in a review, you will find that almost every aspect of Ark Nova works together in unison without feeling awkward or out of place. The shifting and placement of your action cards combined with the fact that you only get one action a turn melds together with the wide decision space of the card play, conservation awards, and tile placement to provide a game that is satisfyingly cerebral and flows at a brisk pace.

The Speed

Ark Nova’s action system manages to provide a deep decision space while also being fast and fairly simple. You only get one action a turn, and although the rulebook doesn’t explicitly say so, you can allow the next player to begin before you fully finish.

You don’t need to hold up the table while you try to orient an enclosure you are building, for example. This makes Ark Nova’s turns flow fast, with very little downtime aside from any analysis paralysis a player may encounter.

This isn’t because the game lacks interaction either, but I’ll get to that later. However, like Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova is a long game, and that’s great, I love long games. But I don’t enjoy a lot of downtime in long games.

During the late game in Terraforming Mars, some players will often pass, while others continue bouncing around a variety of actions and triggers while you sit there waiting. There is no passing your turn, or rounds for that matter in Ark Nova.

There is always something you can do, even if it’s just moving the “break” token for some money or drawing some cards. This has the two-fold effect of making sure I’m constantly engaged thinking about my next turn, and interested in what the other players are doing since what they are doing doesn’t take up half the day.

The Break Token

There are no rounds in Ark Nova. Players simply take turns until the game ends. However, there is a break token that advances on the break track. Once it reaches the top, the game takes a quick pause to rotate cards in the display, force players to discard down to their hand size, refill the association board, allow players to gain income, and a few other effects.

The interesting thing to me is the fact that the break token, and how often breaks occur are entirely player-driven. Whenever someone takes the “Cards action” the break token always advances two spaces. But one of the actions a player can take with the “Sponsors” action is to advance the token equal to the card’s strength and gain money equal to the strength.

A player with a lot of income has more incentive to trigger breaks often, while a player with a lot of cards in their hand will be less inclined until they can play them. A player that triggers a break also gains an X token, which should not be underestimated.

In contrast to Terraforming Mars where you only gain income when everyone passes, you have a great deal more personal control over that phase in Ark Nova. Advancing the break token becomes a strategic option, sometimes you want to break, and sometimes you don’t. It’s an avenue for indirect interaction as well. An unexpected break can throw some dirt on a player’s plan if they have low income or a bunch of cards in hand.

I really enjoy the strategic value the break token offers, as well as the push and pull aspect it lends to other players. Like the rest of the game, there’s a lot of nuance involved, and that makes it enjoyable.

The Options

To win in Ark Nova, you need a combination of appeal and conservation, but the paths you can take toward both of those goals are wide open. Each card in the game is unique, so you obviously have plenty of variety in how you build your zoo. But that’s just one piece of the puzzle.

For example, Conservation projects are awards that give Conservation Points based on certain goals, such as having a certain number of predators, or primates. Each card has ranks and usually grants larger rewards for higher ones. Not only are you potentially competing with other players for these awards, but there’s another aspect to consider.

Whenever you fund a conservation project, you take a cube from the left side of your zoo map and place it on the award. You gain whatever bonus was under that cube, and some of these bonuses are income you receive during breaks. You have to decide if you want to hold out for the larger awards or take some early ones for those extra bonuses, leaving the higher awards open for other players.

The game starts with some random Conservation projects, but you can play new ones. There’s a caveat, if you do, other players can also fund awards on the card you played. Decisions, decesions.

Focusing early on your appeal will grant you a higher income. But jumping ahead on the conservation track lets you have the first pick of a few random bonuses.

Each of your five action cards can also be flipped during the game. The back side of each action card greatly expands what that action can do. For example, the back side of the Animal’s card allows you to play animals directly from the display as long as your reputation is high enough. The trick is, that you can only ever flip four of your five action cards during a game, and you will feel the pain of your unflipped card.

For example, if you don’t flip your Cards action over, you can never progress higher than 9 reputation. If you don’t flip your Build action over, you can never build special enclosures.

While you always have numerous options for building your zoo with unique cards, you also always have numerous options at your disposal on how to proceed within other aspects of the game. At the same time, Ark Nova isn’t a point salad game. Winning always circles back to the two main tracks, appeal and conservation. You just have a ton of strategic agency on how you increase them.

The Scoring System & Clarity

The scoring system in Ark Nova is pretty unique, or at least the end-game trigger makes it feel that way. It’s yet another aspect that adds depth to your decision space.

The two main tracks, Appeal and Conservation are increased by separate effects, and they move in opposite directions around the board. When both of a player’s tokens cross paths, the end game is triggered and everyone except the triggering player gets one final turn. After that, you add up end-game scoring effects that may increase the appeal or conservation further.

If both of your scoring tokens end up in the same space, your score is zero, if they never crossed paths your score will be negative, and the further apart they are AFTER they cross paths, the higher your score will be. I’m not going to go into the actual numbers, because what matters is how you make them cross in the first place.

While you will need to raise both, appeal and conservation to some degree, the level of which you focus on either or both, is entirely up to you. As I mentioned before, your options are numerous. It does not matter where on the tracks your tokens cross paths, only that they do.

The scoring system really brings me back to my issues with Terraforming Mars, and there are three main points here that really make Ark Nova shine. The first is the fact that I can look at the tracks at any time and see how everyone is doing. While end-game appeal and conservation bonuses absolutely matter, the track always gives me a ballpark idea of how well each player is doing

By contrast, the Terraforming track in Terraforming Mars is almost entirely irrelevant, the player who wins that game the most in my group is almost always last on the track when the game ends.

Secondly, there is a level of clarity in Ark Nova that Terraforming Mars lacks. Both are long games, and I lose at them both frequently. However, in Terraforming Mars, I never know why. I play a two or three-hour game, it looks like I do very well, and I lose anyway with no real explanation as to why I did worse than other players or how I can improve.

In Ark Nova, I know I made a mistake the moment I made one. I can very easily look at everyone’s play areas and understand why their score markers are where they are. I can learn from my losses and improve at the game beyond simple engine optimization.

Finally, the end game trigger is in everyone’s control, independently from one another. If you are playing a four-player game of Terraforming Mars. The game ends when the planet is Terraformed, but it’s a group effort, and if multiple players don’t give a crap, that’s that.

I have played multiple games of Terraforming Mars where I can see that an engine-focused player has an engine that’s only getting better with each passing round, and I desperately want to end the game before it runs everyone over. But I can only do so much Terraforming alone. If the other players are content to build their engines further, there’s not much I can do.

In Ark Nova, it’s somewhat of a race, and if I want to try and cut that race short for my own benefit, I can. The game has enough clarity that I can see if someone’s engine is about to enter a mega spiral and I can take steps to slash its tires before the ignition is switched.

On the flip side, if I have a good engine going I can look at the board state and make a decision of whether or not I’d benefit from a shorter or longer game, relative to the other players.

In Terraforming Mars, players can easily get caught up in the fun of making their engine go brrr, to the extent that they probably don’t realize another player won 4 rounds ago. The race aspect in Ark Nova ensures that doesn’t happen.

The Theme

Ark Nova has a strong theme, but in two different ways, a realistic way, and an abstract way. That might sound like an oxymoron, but let me explain. The mechanisms of building a zoo largely reflect the theme. Animals need enclosures, and animals increase your zoo’s appeal. Sponsors give you various benefits, and funding conservation projects or housing endangered species gives you more conservation points. It’s reasonably realistic.

However, the animal cards often give you powers that aren’t realistic at all but still make sense in an abstract way for that animal. For example, a Monkey might pilfer cards from another player. It makes no sense in the context of competing zoos, but total sense that a monkey would pilfer something from someone’s pocket.

A Crocodile might have the “snapping” ability. Allowing you to gain a card from the display. How does that make sense? Well, imagine if Ark Nova was a digital game, and when you played the Crocodile there was an animation of it popping up from the water and “snapping” a card from the board. You probably wouldn’t even question it, would you?

I appreciate that Ark Nova’s theme isn’t simple window dressing and that its mechanisms reflect its theme the best they can. It ultimately succeeds in making you feel like you’re building a zoo instead of managing spreadsheets, and that makes me happy.

The Interaction

Most engine-building games like Ark Nova lack player interaction, and that tends to be a problem for me. However, Ark Nova has plenty of interaction, it’s just not in your face about it.

At the very basic level, the cards in the display are up for grabs, and you are competing for awards which very much matters. The break system has a direct effect on the entire table, and plenty of cards can be triggered by other players, far more often than in a game like Terraforming Mars.

For example, in the last game of Terraforming Mars I played, someone chose the Saturn Systems Corporation. Guess how many Jovian tags the other players played the entire game? Zero.

In my last game of Ark Nova, there was a conservation project focused on Herbivores, and another player played the Expert In Herbivores card meaning they got 3 money anytime anyone played a Herbivore. This put the ball in the other player’s courts. Do they give up those awards, or play Herbivores and make that player richer?

While you could say the same about the Jovian Tags, it’s far easier to ignore those cards in Terraforming Mars, than it is to ignore an entire type of animal in Ark Nova, especially when a conservation project connected to them is in play.

The first player to reach certain spots on the conservation track gets dibs on some specific rewards, everything on the association board is up for grabs and doesn’t refill until a break, and donations are completely blocked once taken.

Finally, some cards even attack players ahead of you, like Snakes that give venom or constriction tokens to players and have negative effects. Then there is the end-game trigger that I talked about before, and everything surrounding it. While not as interactive as a combat-focused game. Ark Nova has plenty going on, and it makes me interested in what the other players are doing each turn.

What I Dislike About Ark Nova

The Solo Mode

Ark Nova’s solo mode is quite simple, reach a non-negative score within a set number of turns. That’s it. It works well, at least in the context of its own gameplay. Not to make yet another comparison to Terraforming Mars, but even in my original review, I criticized it because the solo mode made a good chunk of the cards effectively useless.

While Ark Nova doesn’t have that issue, I still didn’t find the solo mode to be all that thrilling. The strict time restraint limits a lot of strategies and Ark Nova loses a lot of the appeal that the multiplayer mode has. The solo mode is incredibly simple though, but there’s not much more to say about it.

Verdict

Ark Nova is just a very cohesive game and its inner workings are brilliant. Its excellent combo play, engine building, and variety pair well with its strategic planning, clarity of information, and a player-driven break system and end-game trigger.

Let me be clear. I don’t want this review to seem like an attack on Terraforming Mars. It’s not, I really enjoy the game and have played it a massive number of times. The thing is, sometimes games compete for the same niche when it comes to hitting my table. I think Ark Nova is a direct improvement to most of what Terraforming Mars is, but that’s okay, Terraforming Mars came out in 2016.

Gaming ideas evolve, iterate, and improve, or at least they should, and we should want them to. Ark Nova replacing Terraforming Mars doesn’t take away the good times I had with it, and maybe at some point, something will replace Ark Nova too. Games are in competition with each other for table time more than sales.

When playing a new game, I’ll often ask myself the same question. Why would I play this over a similar game that I love in my collection? In Ark Nova’s case, it’s because it does what Terraforming Mars does, but better. I’m giving Ark Nova my Golden Shield Award.