Product Description

All players are zoo directors and try to attract the most visitors to their zoos. Success comes to the player who creates the largest attractions. Players will want to build spacious areas for the various kinds of animals and also attractive pathways for their visitors with park benches and lots of trees and bushes to appeal to botanical senses.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #221924 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Rio Grande Games
• Model: 235RGG
• Released on: 2007-04-01
• Dimensions: 9.00" h x 2.00" w x 9.00" l, 1.63 pounds

Features

• 2 to 4 players
• 60 minutes to play
• Egyptian archeological theme
• Strategy game

From the Manufacturer
Players compete in the building of Mall World, scheduled to be the largest indoor shopping mall in the world. In the planning of a mall this size, it is important to get the right shops in the right locations and the player best able to do this will win the game.

Customer Reviews

Fun, easy to learn, and pretty fast-paced! Good for young and old alike
This game is colorful, fast-paced, simple, and smart. Good for a range of ages, my friends and I would even play it in college when we were in a silly mood for something light and amusing. The basic idea is to get the most points from the layout of your zoo based on the arrangement and content of your tiles, which all players silently bid on during each of the five rounds.

Each round counts as a year, and during each round, five tiles are put on the auction block, one at a time. Each player has a certain amount of "coins" from the beginning of the game and receives more for each tile they have at the end of a year, but they bid on each tile by deciding how many coins they are willing to part with, putting it in their closed hand, and revealing their bid at the same time.

The winner keeps the tile and arranges it in their zoo. Different numbers of trees, enclosures, or connecting exhibits allow the player to compete for the most of a category, and at the end of a year, the winner gets two points for each one (number of trees, "orange" exhibits, "yellow" exhibits, "blue" exhibits, etc. -the colors represent types of exhibits like aquatic, primates, etc.) Second place gets one point. Each year the points are worth more (year one, multiply by one, year two, multiply by two, year three, multiply by three...)

The strategy requires players to guess how much a tile is worth, in terms of point possibilities, positioning in their park versus other players' parks, how many coins they and others have left, and where to place each tile in your park. Because each tile is different, and you are not sure what will come up next, there is always planning to be done.

Once you learn the game, which doesn't take too long (it's so much easier than this sounds), it becomes pretty fast-paced and is a lot of fun. Great for many ages, families, and friends!

The thick glossy tiles are durable, as are the solid wood pieces (coins, people, benches, trees). That's about it as far as parts go, though since they are small, it would be wise to save this for an age group not prone to eating everything. The recommended age is 9+, but slightly younger kids could try it out as well.