This is not a traditional review that goes through the components, mechanics and gameplay of a board game. There are already several great reviews of Zooloretto on BGG that go through the game in great detail. This review is meant to describe how well Zooloretto works with younger players.

Executive summary: Works great with kids.

Background:

I have two wonderful girls aged 6 and 8 who love to play games. I think the social aspect is what they like the most but I'm sure that the competition aspect and "playing the same games that daddy plays with his gaming buddies" has some importance as well. Lately, I've been introducing them to games that have fairly simple rules, where some strategy or tactics is involved, and that doesn't take too long to play. I started with games that have a theme they easily could relate to. Basically the exact same criteria as for most lightweight gateway games.

I picked up Zooloretto by accident. Last November I was on a business trip to Munich and managed to pay a quick visit to Obletter to look for something to bring home for the kids. I found a few games there for myself (that is never difficult) but I couldn't find anything for the kids that would be an obvious "hit". I was slowly running out of time and had to find something so I ended up buying Zooloretto because I was sure they would love the theme and because the "Spiel des Jahres" award usually means that the game works well as a family game. I had read a brief description of Zooloretto earlier and had never really put it on my list-of-games-to-keep-an-eye-out-for.

Learning the rules:

The theme was an instant hit and they wanted to try the game as soon as they saw the box. They both picked up the majority of the rules quite quickly and the only thing that took them some time to figure out was the remodel money action (the difference between a move and an exchange action). It also took a few rounds for them to remember that a player's turn ends when a truck is taken so they have to do the money actions before they grab the trucks. However after a few games they got the hang of this.

My two daughters use quite different strategies. The 8 yo plays to win the game with a secondary focus on getting money. The 6 yo also plays to win but will do almost anything to get hold of a fertile male and female to make baby animals. She'll grab a truck with, say, a single male chimp over a truck with, say, a truck with a shop, a coin, and a non-fertile chimp any day of the week.

Oh and in our game when we discard a tile the kids keep telling me that they are selling to a zoo in another country. They don't believe me when I say we're killing off the excess animals.

Understanding the tricks:

One of the things I always enjoy is to see if they pick up the tricks of the game or if they just play it. When we play the first couple of games I usually discuss different options with them or point out why a move may be a good or a bad idea. The "trickiest" part of Zooloretto (imo anyway) is figuring out how to place tiles on trucks and when to grab a truck (early or late). How to place animals in the zoo is fairly stright forward even if you take the distribution of animals in the other zoo's into account.

Apart from the fact that the 6 yo will take a fertile creature over almost anything else they both have a very clear understanding of how to place tiles on wagons. They quickly realized that if they make the contents of a truck too good then the other players will grab it before they get the chance. At the same time they also realized that it's a bad idea to make trucks where the combination of animals matches the zoo's of other players. And they love to spoil a perfect
truck for their dad the little devils.

The 8 yo likes to stockpile money towards the end of the game so she can kill off (ahem ... sorry ... sell abroad) animals she has in the stable. I don't think she likes getting negative points and would rather sell them than taking the penalty and getting some positive points elsewhere.

All in all they do quite well in understanding the underlying tricks and mechanics of the game --- the oldest does slightly better than the youngest. However, because of the scoring mechanisms in the game there is usually very little difference in final scoring between them so even though one of them has a slight advantage (and will on average win slightly more games) then most games feel like it was a pretty close race.

Fun factor.

Is it fun playing with the kids? Definitely. They adore the theme and they really like the game. The scores are pretty close and while skill and experience certainly helps then the game is fairly open. This also holds when we introduce the game to new players --- new players have a chance of winning.

I've tried to get hold of some of the extensions but haven't had much luck. I'll probably end up printing the Zooloretto - The Petting Zoo so we can try that. However, Aquaretto is in the mail so I'm guessing we will try that first (and I suppose that the fact that we even ordered Aquaretto tells that we're having fun with Zooloretto).

Play it again?

Definitely. Zooloretto sees a lot of table time at our house and this is the game that we most frequently have seen (non-gamer) friends buy after they have played it.

I'm glad I ran out of time back in Munich.