therese blog

As a lover of Ark Nova this was a no-brainer to get my hands on as fast as possible. I saw the capybara-tiles and there was no going back (if you stay on and follow me, you will notice an unhealthy obsession with capybaras).

This game is more fast paced and less strategic than Ark Nova and takes less time to finish a round. Where Ark Nova has you racing towards the first few rewards on the conservation track, Sanctuary has you more focused on building habitats and animals that work together to score as much as possible by placing them strategically on your player board.

The setup is fast, pick or randomize five goals, shuffle the tiles, place your player action cards and the player markers by your board. Draw the first six tiles to the tile board and begin.

You pick a tile from the tile board, the project cards placement will dictate which ones you can take.

Then you take action – take more tiles or place an animal/project (in the beginning you just want more tiles so you’ll have some idea what you can/want to do).

Then you can build a house, if possible.

After that it’s time to see if you can/want to place one of your conservation markers on the goal board.

The fifth step is to see if you can flip your action cards by fulfilling one of four goals (have four animals, three adjoining matching habitats, played two projects or placed a conservation marker).

The last thing you do is upkeep. You discard tiles if you have more than six tiles in your hand. You refill the tile board. And then it’s the next player.

As always with these games it’s hard to stay focused while the other player takes its turn, because you are constantly thinking about your own strategy, and trying not to forget it, if you had one to start with. The game doesn’t have much interaction points between the players and you don’t even have to keep tabs on how many icons your adversary has because you can both claim the highest price on the goal board. But, when you’ve had that perfect flow and placed all tiles at the same time you place your last conservation marker it is a sweet feeling.

It can be hard to get the right icons on your map, but do not fret, you can also earn the end game point if you fill up your map. The two ways the game end is by filling the map – or placing your fourth conservation marker. The others have one last round to try and get runner up points.

We play this game at least once a week here, and it has taken Ark Novas place. The easier setup and the speedier gameplay a strong factor. But it doesn’t hold as much strategy as Ark Nova.

I’ve rated the game 8 out of 10 on BoardGameGeek