Winter Games: Boardgames and Deck Builders

Well-produced boardgames have become quite expensive in recent years. The costs aren’t too bad if a game gets played time and again, but it’s not so good if a $50+ box just sits on a shelf. With that in mind we’ve picked out a couple of family games that are more than likely to get played repeatedly.

Rio Grande Games Zooloretto

Zooloretto is about building and managing your own zoo. It’s not far removed from videogames like Zoo Tycoon, which involve building up a collection of animals and attracting visitors. There aren’t as many options as found in Zoo Tycoon videogames but that’s more than made up for by playing against real people. Play takes about half-an-hour to an hour to complete and is suitable for kids of about 8 or 9+. Most adults will enjoy the game just as much as kids. The gameplay benefits player who think ahead, though there’s also a certain amount of luck involved.

Zooloretto has a whole rack of add-ons and enthusiastic players may wish to buy a few. That said the price starts to get a bit high once you include a couple of add-ons. As with most boardgame purchases, it’s a good idea to shop around.

We’ve also come across an iPad version of the game, which looks promising but isn’t quite as polished as we’d like. That said the iPad version is a good example of the types of boardgame conversions likely to encourage shared gaming on tablets over the next few years.

Rio Grande Games Dominion: Prosperity

Our other contender is a Dominion expansion. This will be of no use whatsoever unless you have Dominion itself or Dominion: Intrigue. The Alchemy add-on, to what is an excellent deck building card game, looked particularly interesting. However, the Alchemy add-on cards don’t provide a lot of extra options and seemed to make play last quite a bit longer. This encouraged a switch to the larger Prosperity expansion, which adds lots of useful cards and focuses on wealth and riches. Given that Dominion is all about ‘lording it’ over your opponents, the Prosperity add-on fits in seamlessly and definitely enhances the overall game.