ZoOoOOOooOOOooloretto !!!!

The store's owner here once showed me a game called Coloretto.
Despite good rating in BGG, I wasn't impressed at all.
Somehow It feels too simple & luck dependent.
Then Zooloretto was released, nominated for SDJ, and to my surprise, it won SDJ 2007.
I did some research on BGG and I found it was based on same mechanic with Coloretto.
So I removed it from my shopping list.

December 2007, a friend brought his Zooloretto to the store so finally we can try it (his was the first opened copy of the game in the store). After the first game, I was so impressed and we decided to play 2 more games. It presents more depth and tactical choices than it's card game counterpart. Christmas 2007, Zooloretto officially became a member in my game shelf

Components
Mine is multi language version from Abacus-Spiele and the quality is top-notch. Here's the content:

• 5 zoo boards & 5 zoo expansions
  
• 5 wooden trucks (cool !)
  
• Lots of tiles (3 types): animals & their offspring, money and vending stalls
  
• Some wooden tokens as money coin
  
• 1 cloth bag
  
• 10 double sided money-action reference, 5 in English/German 5 in Italian/French

Gameplay
I'll try to explain as simple as possible. Here's the gameplay:
Each player has their own zoo. Each zoo has 3 enclosure and 1 barn to store the animals.
Each enclosure can only store one type of animal. If you have no more room, the animals go to the barn.
Any animals in the barn at the end of the game will give you penalty to your score. So it's important
to decide which animal goes where, and what animals to take or let go.

During a turn, a player can choose one of these actions:

• Add a tile to a truck. A player draws 1 tile from the clothbag and add it to a truck (each truck has 3 empty spaces).
  
• Take a truck. A player may take a truck with at least 1 tiles in it, put all the tiles to his zoo in anyway he likes and then pass for the rest of the current round. When each of the players has taken the trucks, a new round begins.
  
• 1 money action. This is a new mechanic that doesn't present in Coloretto. Basically these action allow you to manage your zoo and for me these actions make zooloretto better than Coloretto. These actions required some amount of money to be performed.

Money actions breakdown:

• Move 1 tile for 1 coin.
  
• Swap 2 types of tile for 1 coin
  
• Purchase 1 tile from another player's barn for 2 coins (1 for the player, 1 for the bank)
  
• Discard 1 tile from your barn for 2 coins
  
• Expand zoo, gives you 1 additional enclosure, for 3 coins

The game ends when there are no more tiles in the clothbag

Scoring
the scoring occurs only when the game ends. In which:

• Each enclosure that's completely filled with animals will net the owner a higher number value printed in the enclosure
  
• Each enclosure that has 1 empty space will net the owner a lower number value printed in the enclosure
  
• Each enclosure that has 2 or more empty space won't be scored except if you have at least 1 vending stalls attached next to it, then it will add 1 point for each animal tiles in the enclosure
  
• Add 2 points for each different types of stalls deployed in the zoo
  
• Subtract 2 points for each different types of tiles in your barn

Conclusion
Zooloretto is very simple yet engaging. The game can be learned in a matter of minutes and good as family game & introduction game for new gamers. Oh and also it plays fast, less than an hour, which is good in my book.

Although luck factor is present in the game, I think it's fairly low because of money actions which allow you to manage some unwanted tiles in the zoo.

To me this game really deserved it's SDJ award. Behind it's simplicity & short play time, it offers some management skill with low luck factor. Clearly a winner!

my score: 8.5 out of 10 !

Very nice review..

I like this game, cuma sometimes suka kecewa, the game ends very quickly..

Anybody ever tried playing with the new expansion?

gw sih belon pernah cobain expansion nya ... tapi kalo basic gamenya, dah sering maen, bahkan dah pernah maen sama anak-anak umur 8 dan 10 tahun ... juga ama mama mertua, dan semua bisa ngikutin dan enjoy the game ... bahkan terkahir-terakhir nyokap mertua terus yang menang ... ck ck ck ...

@kohee
very nice review bro ... Zooloretto memang layak menang SdJ ... simple strategy family game ... luck factor memang ada, but you have some power to control it at certain level ... dan so pasti cewek-cewek bakal doyan ... gambarnya cute sih ... he he he ...

dengan review ini microbadge gw nambah 1 di BGG huhuhuhu FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES FAN !!!

selamat brooo ...

ayo terus kumpulin Geek Gold ... gw dah lama nih gak aktif di BGG, cuman sempet masukin data maen game doank ... hiks

WOHhhhh de!!!! gw baru dapet copper reviewer badge nihhhh karena dah 5 review... mengharukan

Zooloretto, one of my fave game...

My fave animal, the cute Panda...
And stupidnya, sempet insist ngumpulin Panda krn lucu, pdhal dah rame yg ngumpulin ..payah dehhh...

Great review, kohee..
Wonder, kapan bisa tanding hehehehe...

Eh expansionnya apaan sih?

expansion nya dah ada dua nih ... yang pertama cuman tambahan binatang untuk Zooloretto ... dan expansion kedua tuh game baru ... Aquaretto ... baru mau release maret nanti (biasanya sih ngaret ke april atau may) ...

bro kohee ... bakal koleksi donk nih expansi2x nya si zooloretto ... he he he ...

aquaretto game-nya stand alone atau butuh zooloretto ?
mungkin ceritanya kita piara ikan kali ya

gw dah donglod dan baca rulebook nya ...
si Aquaretto bisa stand alone ... dan juga bisa di maenin bareng Zooloretto ...
betul banget, kolam ikan ...

mo nanya dong.. emang klo kita mo beli binatang pemain lain itu harus yang ada di barn, dan si pemain lain itu harus mau jual ya? soalnya ada tulisan : players may not refuse blablabla (males liatnya hehee)

yup cuma bisa beli hewan yg ada di barn....
dan...itu ga butuh persetujuan yg punya....pokoknya ga ada yg bisa cegah

yup cukup bayar 1 duit ke si player yang elu ambil binatangnye dari barn, plus satu duit ke bank ... beres dah ...

gimana first gamenya? damai atau dah jahat-jahatan? he he he ...

hoo gitu.. ok2..
zooloretto blom resmi dimainkan.. baru berdua aja buat testing rules

@ kohee & indofungames
thx ya!

mamikevin wrote:

My fave animal, the cute Panda...
And stupidnya, sempet insist ngumpulin Panda krn lucu, pdhal dah rame yg ngumpulin ..payah dehhh...

cewe bgt!
gw juga kemungkinan gitu, tapi gw suka sama macannya

cottonkid wrote:

hoo gitu.. ok2..
zooloretto blom resmi dimainkan.. baru berdua aja buat testing rules

@cottonkid, kalo dah maen, komentar ya...

akhirnya main zooloretto bertiga.. tapi sama adenya co gw yg paling kecil umur 10 taun.. ga seru karna sebenernya gw yg menang, tapi cowo gw nyolek dikit nyuruh gw ngebiarin adenya yg menang soalnya koinnya paling banyak..

blom sempet maen game sama grup gw yg biasa nih..

he he he ... ngalah ama calon adek ipar mah ok lah ... but don't get surprised kalo di next game, gak perlu di colek emang dah kalah ... ha ha ha ...

waktu gw maen kedua kalinya bareng anak 9 taon dan adeknya 7 taon ... yang menang tuh si kokonya .. gw sendiri cuman nomer 2 ...

itu loe ngalah kali bro..

kemaren main zooloretto juga deh berlima..
langsung maen 2 kali berturut2
mnurut salah satu temen gw lebih seru ticket to ride daripada zooloretto.
In my opinion, masing2 ada keunggulan ma kekurangannya.
klo zoloretto kurang berasa menangnya soalnya pake ngitung skor dulu, sdangkan ttr kan keliatan tuh pergerakan scoringnya. Trus zoolo mood "bunuh2annya" sdikit menghilang karna binatang2nya yang lucu
Nah,keunggulan si zoolo mnurut gw itu gameplaynya yang singkat, jadi waktu +/- 45 menit bisa terisi dengan enough fun! klo ttr kan bisa sejam-an..

wqerti wrote:

itu loe ngalah kali bro..

di game pertama emang guwa ngalah ... tapi di game yang kedua ini gw serius kok maennya ... memang sih ada bbrp round yang si koko ini hoki banget ...

@cottonkid ...
couldn't agree more ... setujuh banget, TtR vs Zooloretto ... dua-dua nya punya plus nya masing-masing ... tapi gw pernah maen ber-5, dan mood jahat nya pada keluar tuh ... pokoknye, itu truk di isi belang-belang deh binatangnya ... sampe-sampe baru keisi satu aja dah di ambil truk nya .. malah kalo bole, masih kosong pun diambil deh ...

betul...with the "right" people...zooloretto bisa jadi jadi kacau balau kok, hahaha...
waktu itu main sama dani, kohee & joko, wah...itu udah kacau deh barn nya :p

para wargamers geek .. maen zooloretto ... kebayang deh tuh kebon binatang jadi medan pertempuran ... atau mungkin di buat cara penilaian baru? yang minus di barn nya paling gede dia yang menang?

hahaha....gak gitu De,...kyknya musti yg menang itu yg paling banyak bunuh binatang :p (paling banyak discard animal tile) hehehe

wooowww ... itu bener-bener perlu strategi baru tuh ... berarti kudu mati-matian kumpulin duit ... lalu pake duit bunuh-bunuhin binatang ... hmmm ...

buset deh .. ini game damai berubah jadi game berdarah-darah ...