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I realised recently that all my favourite games at the moment seem to feature animals or creatures of some kind. I’m not quite sure what that says about me, or about my taste in games - but each of them offer such a wide variety, I’m not complaining and they definitely provide a bit of cheer in these blustery days!
Note: some of these suggestions are out of stock/on backorder. They are worth the wait - sign up to be notified as to when they are back in stock!
Three relaxing, beautiful and very different suggestions:
1. Oceans
Oceans is one of my favourite games (and well worth putting on backorder)! The beautiful artwork on the box draws you in, and you know you want to put it on your gaming shelf of choice or dive straight into the box.
Inside you’ll find a build your own reef, with some colourful cardboard fish and a whole host of cards. The premise of the game is simple - build your own behemoth / deep sea creature. Will you forage for food like the whale shark, or will you attack yours, or your opponent’s species to gain food (points) instead?
It’s a strategic, card development game for 2-4 people which comes in two modes. The basic version is worth playing initially so you understand how the game plays, but the more advanced version with ‘deep’ cards really makes the difference. Of the c.90 deep cards, each has a unique ability to enhance your individual species - some make it possible to store more fish on your card, others to increase your attacking power. Each game is unique and you never quite know what you’ll end up with, or who will win!
If you can’t wait to receive your Oceans box, maybe try Evolution: Climate (a stand alone game). It’s by the same company, has beautiful artwork and includes a beautiful wooden dinosaur. It’s on our post-Christmas pile of games ‘to be played’ - and I can’t wait to try it.
2. Wingspan
If Oceans is a game about fish, Wingspan is a game about…frogs? No, you guessed it, birds! It’s one of my favourite games to play as it has just the right amount of interaction with other players to make it exciting, but not so much that you are constantly directly competing against each other.
It’s another card building game where you have a beautiful board with three zones for your birds to land in - forest, field and flood (more commonly known as wetlands…but that doesn’t start with F)! However, you only have a limited number of turns across the 4 rounds to entice enough birds to your board to earn you points (scored through laying eggs, points from the birds, tucked cards and a couple of other bonus features).
The bird cards are beautifully designed and you learn some interesting facts about a whole variety of birds - how many eggs they tend to lay, their wingspan and where they’re from. It is a beautifully designed game and the expansions are worth it.
Whether you’re a twitcher, a tweeter or neither you will still enjoy the design and play of this game.
If you love the base game or play regularly with gamers, there are a number of expansions to Wingspan (which gives you the base game and a huge number of starter cards):
- Wingspan: European edition (features European birds)
- Wingspan: Oceania Expansion (features birds from New Zealand, Australia and Pacific Islands). This also introduces a new food element of nectar which massively improves the game play and decreases the amount of goes you spent hunting for food to ‘pay’ for your birds.
- Wingspan: Asia (features, you guessed it, birds from Asia, as well as expanding the number of boards to enable 5-7 players. It also introduces a neat 2-player component which mixes things up even further).
- Wingspan Fan Art (This features the same birds as elsewhere in the game, but drawn by fans in a variety of different styles which is pretty cool).
This leads to a LOT of cards - which provides a huge amount of variety and endless replay-ability, although the likelihood of that bird you really liked appearing becomes pretty remote. I cannot encourage you enough to get the Wingspan Board Game: Nesting Box, or failing that, the various e-raptor inserts (sadly Zatu aren’t paying me to say this, I promise)! We bought the expansions as they emerged, and our gaming developed, and regretted not getting the Nesting Box (it’s on my Wishlist). It would make storing, transporting and playing the game a lot easier to have everything in one place. Plus, rumour has it there’s a 4th expansion (not counting fan-art) with birds from a yet to be disclosed continent likely being released in 2025…!
Wingspan is beautiful, peaceful and a firm family favourite (unless you’re my mum, who dislikes the lack of direct competitiveness involved)!
And if birds isn’t your thing but dragons are, watch this space for Wyrmspan. The eagerly awaited stand alone game which is similar to Wingspan, but features dragons, caves and speckled eggs!
3. Cascadia
Cascadia is an elusive game as it is incredibly popular and goes out of stock quickly (it’s won Spiel des Jahres and Board Game Geek’s Golden Geek award). However, it is worth waiting for as it is yet another beautifully designed game which, of course, features wonderful animals! [Top tip: Zatu have a handy ‘notify me’ function, where as soon as it’s back in stock, you’ll be emailed and you can quickly add it to your basket!]
This time, you’re matching landscape tiles (sea, sand, mountain, marsh, and forest) with animal tokens. You get points for the largest matching landscape you have, as well as for placing your animals (salmon / bears / deer / foxes / hawks) into certain patterns and shapes, according to the goal card for each species you drew at the beginning of the game.
There’s a bit of strategy as you have to balance the desire for a perfectly matched landscape, with the high scoring points from animals, as well as consider what your opponent may wish to take. You can play with 1-4 people or if you find yourself waiting quite a long time for your gaming partner(s) to join you, you can go rogue and see if you can match all of the landscape tiles within their own area as far as possible to make a beautiful scenic ‘jigsaw’! The wooden animal tiles are beautiful and it makes for a very relaxing game (with very occasional bouts of frustration)! So sign-up to be notified of it being back in stock now!
Summary
All three of these games (Oceans, Wingspan and Cascadia) offer a gentle but beautiful foray into the world of animal-themed games. However, watch this space for a summary of my favourite strategic animal games where you’ll need your best zookeeper outfit or foraging skills…!