This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art or components may change in the final game.
Nice To Know! Animals comes from two new designers Ibrahim Halil Ciftci and Erdem Ocal and founder Sertan Arig, and their newly formed publishing house HOUF Games. The game looks a little like a government funded game that is used at Schools to try and teach their students in a fun way. But it is good. Don't let the slightly 1980's name and theme fool you! Is this based on an IP already out there? It sounds like some American show that maybe I have not heard of?
The game works incredibly simply. On your turn you either gain research credits known in the game as RE. Or you spend previously earned credits to get new cards into your array. That's it. But the magic comes in the cards, how they work together, and ultimately, how they score. Which is a whole different thing! We will come to that shortly. But first, let's take a little look at the cards and how they work.
In the game, there are 182 animal cards. They are not all the unique. There are duplicates, but this is a game function. Such as the below Chameleon that comes in a two, this Vulture which is part of four, or this Horses which is one of five. But some come as unique cards, such as this Rabbit. The quantity of each card is shown in pips on the right next to the animal's name so you will always know the rarity of each card.
On the card, you will also see the card's end game points in the top right, its diet and endangered level (shown with a sad face such as the Rabbit above) in the top right, the area of residence (do animals reside?) in the top left, and a nice interesting fact at the bottom. The facts are not always relevant, just a bit of fun. But do sometimes help with the Quest cards. Depending on my mood, I have both gorged on these and ignored them completely! They are excellent, but not always necessary.
When you take a card, you must first spend the required amount of RE and second, be in the right location. The cards will be laid out in a three-by-three grid during setup. The cards in the top row cost one RE, the middle row will set you back two RE, and the bottom row has a cost of three RE. If you want to gain RE, you will do this by discarding a card from the grid. The top row gains you five RE. The middle gains you three, and the bottom gains you just one. You will want to discard from the top, but as the cards move down the rows during the game, discarding from the top will potentially be getting rid of the better cards you have not had the chance to take yet. It is a delicate but interesting rule that works well.
When you gain the cards, simply choose the one you want, pay the appropriate row costs, and take the card. But if you are not in the right continent, you cannot do this. You must first pay nine RE to move continents, which is a lot in this game. Alternatively, if the row from which you want to take the card has a Sponsored flight card, you can take that card along with the Animal card of your choosing and move for free.
There are 20 of these in the game, and their appearance will obviously be somewhat random and can cause swings in the game. It's a frustrating and somewhat unnecessary way that the game offers too much luck and not enough strategy. I feel that either the cost to move should be less, or you should be able to move to neighbouring areas for reduced costs. Or the number of Sponsored cards should be more. Because sometimes you will find there are games when you barely have to pay for any flights, whereas there are others when you are constantly out of luck and the Sponsored flights keep getting taken by other players.
When you add a card, it will work for you in many ways, perhaps one too many for your first few games. It can be a lot to take in when you come to final scoring. In addition to the points shown on the top right of the card, each card can also be put towards various Quests and scoring categories.
The Quests are gained whenever you gain a duplicate card, as well as one being dealt out at random at the start of the game; from a choice of two. The Quests all have two missions; you can only complete one per card, and three cards in total. The Quest points vary from five to ten and are about specific things regarding the animal's location, appearance, behaviour - even poop! If you are unsure which card the Quest is referring to, there is a handy guide you can use.
The categories the cards work towards include their diet, endangered status, and location. At the end of the game, the person with the most Carnivorous or Herbivorous cards scores five points each, ten in total. There are three points up for grabs for the player with the most endangered cards, and five points for the player with the most Sponsored Flight cards.
Then, you will assign each card in your array to a specific continent. Some cards work for multiple areas, other have a set continent. You will then score five points if you have the most cards in each of the seven continents. Also, for each continent where you have at least two animals, you will score 30 points if you managed to get all seven continents, 20 points if you collected within six of them, and 15 points if you have two cards for at least five continents.
Finally, players will score two points for each Invitation certificate they have. These are gained throughout the game in a one of two ways. Whenever a player gains their fifth, tenth, or fifteenth animal card, a separate Invitation phase begins. The player that triggered this phase will gain one Invitation certificate - placed on the main board during setup - from either the fifth, tenth, or fifteenth space on the bottom right of the board; and then they will place Invitation certificates onto each continent on the main board where there are currently no players present.
This encourages players to travel around the board more during the game, as well as collecting the cards as quickly as possible. Also, this race element comes to the forefront when considering the end game mechanic, which is triggered when a player gains their fifth endangered animal or, more commonly, their eighteenth non-endangered animal card.
As you gather your cards during the game, you need to be thinking about which continent it is in, what quests it could help you fulfil, as well as the pacing the other players currently have against the seven continents and the two types of cards, endangered and non-endangered. It is a lot to take in, and invariably, you will come to the end of your first few games realising you totally forgot about one quest card, or more likely, one or two continents. It is hard to do them all. But as you score, you will realise you have gathered a lot of points, no matter what you neglected. Most games end with most players scoring above 100 points, sometimes well in excess! It is a point salad of a game in this respect, and satisfying to win or lose. However, the real joy comes after multiple plays, and you start to see the matrix, aiming for and acquiring the right cards in the most efficient way, keeping track of the cards the other players are getting, and winning the all-important continental area-control war; whilst still getting at least two for each area yourself. There are huge point swings to be gathered here; up to 65 in total.
I found the game to be quite absorbing in this way. As much as it appears incredibly simple, with minimal rules and only two real options on your turn; the strategy of which animals you collect and the huge swing in points this can have does make me want to keep coming back to the table. It is a game I want to master, as I feel you can quickly do this. This may seem like an issue, but what I found was that it actually meant that it led to very competitive and interesting games forming - very quickly. Players learned how to do well in this game within two to three games. Subsequent plays were a lot better as the people around the table were evenly matched, all fully aware of what they were doing, and thinking hard about how to best create the most point-worthy array of animals.
There are many games like this that offer this lovely build and experience when all players become "good" at the game. But often, they are a lot more complicated, time consuming, and harder to get multiple players at the same level. As such it is hard to find a group of people all at an expert level to deliver the experience you really want. Nice To Know! Animals however is light, very simple, and relatively quick, around 40-60 minutes. So you can achieve this.
The games fly by due to turns being so simple and fast. You can generally plan ahead if you want to, not for specific cards as such, but the type of card you are looking out for. Of course, there are times when an animal you want appears in the grid and is gone by the time it is your turn. However, they will always be replaced by something new, and generally something useful will be there somewhere. Most the time, due to the high RE cost of flying, players are looking for animals you can either fly to for free or are in the same region as you first and foremost, and then ones that suit your quests and geographic requirements on a secondary level. The other way may work better, but you simply wont have the RE. Well, that's how I play anyway, and it generally works out okay. But I do prefer fast play over optimum efficiencies for a game of this weight! And when you get to know the game, fast plays still work well.
Essentially, what I am saying is that this is a nice game to get if you want a simple game to master, still play quickly, but get the feeling you are doing something smart!
The art on the cards is a little empty, but there is, is good. It just feels a little more formulaic and scientific than beautiful. The player aids are excellent and detail everything you would want to know. I am not a fan of the art on the quest cards. That is very bland, as is the main board. It is functional but somewhat simplistic for my tastes. The star of the show component wise though are the cute little ani-meeples!
Overall, I think this is a game well worth looking into if you are searching for a simple-to-play card game that offers some interesting tableau building and scoring opportunities, especially if you enjoy the animal and conservation theme. The Kickstarter has already successfully hit, so if you want this game, you can essentially pre-order now for a September 2025 delivery, estimated, of course!
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