Sanctuary review: "If you love Wingspan or Planet Zoo, take note of this must-have board game"

One of the best board games of recent years is Ark Nova, a dense zoo-builder that involves a mix of tile drafting and placement, while also meeting certain randomly chosen requirements. While Ark Nova is a triumph, it’s also an extremely complex game that takes hours to complete. That's where Sanctuary comes in.

Publisher Feuerland Spiele has now released Sanctuary as a simpler, quicker alternative to Ark Nova, one that uses many of the same mechanics but without the layers of complexity. Want to go hands-on with the critically-acclaimed zoo board game, but aren't keen on losing half your day to it? This is for you.

Sanctuary features & design

• Build and run a modern, scientifically-managed zoo
• For 1-5 players, taking about 20mins per person
• A more focused version of Ark Nova

In Sanctuary, your aim is to create and manage the ultimate zoo. Take in animals, work toward conservation goals, and increase attendance to earn the most points. Enjoy video games like Planet Zoo? This will suit you down to the ground.

The core of Sanctuary comes in the form of 135 hexagonal tiles containing a mix of animals, buildings, and projects. They're laid out six at a time on a market board that’s refreshed after every turn, and each player will have their own zoo board on which to play them.

These tiles all have different points values or benefits. Animal tiles always contain a victory point count that’s either fixed or is variable based on various circumstances, for example, while project tiles represent partner zoos, animal experts, and other zoo programs that provide a bonus. Meanwhile, buildings also grant victory points but usually can only be placed into a zoo that meets the right criteria. That means you have a variety of approaches you can take in terms of strategy.

No matter what you choose, these options all become more affordable as players draw tiles. The longer a tile remains on the board, the cheaper it is to pick up at the start of a player’s turn. That raises an interesting conundrum. Do you wait for a better deal, or grab something now to avoid a rival scooping it up?

That's not the only thing to juggle. The final Sanctuary board is the Conservation board. At the start of the game, five Conservation goals are randomly selected from the five animal types and five continents. When players have a certain number of each conservation symbol on the board, they can play one of their conservation achievement markers, scoring victory points and inching things closer to the endgame. That puts a ticking clock on everything you do.

Gameplay

• Players compete to complete conservation goals, drafting tiles on each turn
• Animals can score flat victory points or add them based on circumstance, offering a variety of strategies
• Completing conservation goals pushes Sanctuary to an endgame, with the first player to complete four triggering a final round of play

Every turn in Sanctuary is dictated by four action cards placed at the bottom of each player’s zoo board. At the beginning of their turn, players take a tile from the display equal to or less than the value of their project tile. Then, they choose one of their four action cards. (If players choose a habitat card, for instance, they play an animal with a corresponding habitat.) Once the action is played, players place the action card on the far left action slot and slide the rest of the action cards to the right.

These sliding action cards are similar to the core action mechanic of Ark Nova, with an action growing more powerful the longer a player has waited to play it. However, there are less actions to choose from (Ark Nova has five action cards) and the actions almost always correspond to a player placing a tile onto their zoo. The fact that actions become more powerful the longer a player waits to utilize it also encourages a biodiverse zoo – a player can get bigger animals into play by cycling between actions. Of course, this also requires some forethought – players may need to wait several turns before playing a certain action, so there’s a need to think several turns in advance.

This is true for the tiles themselves, too. Each tile has a victory point value, ranging from a flat amount of points to a variable amount based on completing certain conditions. As a case in point, a peacock scores points based on the number of projects in play, while the greater flamingo scores points by the number of adjacent Africa icons on tiles connected to it. Some tiles even score points for every unused tile in the game, while petting zoos collectively score 18 points if players place three petting zoo tiles next to each other. Because almost every tile scores points in some way, players will largely have to decide what to prioritize as they collect tiles and place them in their zoo.

Loosely speaking, which tile a player takes is determined by the game’s conservation goals. Each player has a collection of four conservation goal tiles, with values ranging from 2 to 5. At any point in the game, players can place one of their conservation goal tiles on the goal board as long as they have the corresponding icons in their zoo. Once a player places all four conservation goals onto the board, they trigger a final round of play (and also collects extra victory points.)

Of course, the major issue in Sanctuary is that all players are seeking out the same conservation tiles. This generally means that these tiles are hard to come by and the drafting board isn’t a reliable source for endgame points. Although players can score victory points by ignoring the conservation goals, they’re generally too valuable to give up entirely. This means that players will either burn actions to randomly draw tiles from the supply or find other ways of circumnavigating the display board. For a game that’s built around drafting, there’s a high amount of chance that comes into play, especially in higher player count games where the display board is picked over far more often.

The game ends when one player either fills their entire zoo or completes all four of their conservation goals. Every other player gets one more turn to play final tiles and then victory points are added up by scoring animal tiles, building tiles, project tiles, unused conservation markers, conservation goal tiles, and also open area tiles. The player with the most victory points (often the player who completes all the conservation goal tiles first) wins the game.

In my playthroughs of Sanctuary at least, the key to winning is grabbing as many tiles that correspond to conservation tiles as you possibly can. While every animal tile scores points, the reality is that you can simply score more points by focusing on conservation goals than you can trying to build up alternative strategies. This sadly means that there will be tiles in every game of Sanctuary that are nearly worthless or function as tempting traps for players frustrated that the right tiles never seem to fall into their grasp.

Should you buy Sanctuary?

Sanctuary is a great alternative to the bulkier Ark Nova. While Sanctuary exists in the same general space as Ark Nova, it’s a much quicker and less complex game that can be played in less than two hours. Although chance plays perhaps a bit too much of a role here, it features the perfect amount of strategy and decision-making to keep players coming back over and over.

If there’s one weakness to Sanctuary, it’s that early decisions can either reap dividends or wreck the game. A player who snags the right project (such as one that corresponds to a conservation goal) can quickly outpace their opponents, especially if they can build off of it. Completing conservation goals is crucially important in Sanctuary, and every playthrough of Sanctuary I’ve had has ended with the player who completes their conservation goals first ultimately winning the game.

Even though I’ve had some struggles playing Sanctuary, the act of building a zoo is very rewarding. It’s fun to try to figure out good-scoring combos on the fly and adjust your strategy based on the tiles that are available to you. Plus, even if you can’t pull off a victory, you’ll still have a full zoo at the end of the game to marvel over.

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Sanctuary

Our reviewer studied the game's rules in full before running multiple test sessions with a variety of player counts to see how the experience differed each time, as well as to test longevity. This allowed them to make a more informed and well-rounded critique.

For a better look our process, see how we test board games or the GamesRadar+ reviews policy.

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