I do not mourn the return of the wolf to the Netherlands – in fact, I am happy to push for the protected status of this predator. There are still too many species threatened with extinction. In Animalia: Preventing Extinction you (or you and your friends) try to research, preserve and protect endangered species on behalf of the Institute for Wildlife Conservation (IWC). There are poachers lurking, privateers on the loose, climate crises in the wake of human activity, and other wry reasons galore. Will you be able to save these critters from the threat or will your victory be threatened with extinction?
Animalia, published by Quined Games, is a cooperative trick taking game by Dutch author duo Gerben Ernst and Michiel Hendriks (the latter of whom you may know from Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy). If you are familiar with trick taking games, you can easily learn the game, because the basics remain simple: the player who starts the trick plays a card. Other players must play a card of the same suit (if possible and otherwise they may play a suit of their choice) and the player who plays the highest value has won the trick. Childishly simple you might think, but inside the small box lurks a challenging game with plenty of twists on the usual trick taking game.
Animalia is a cooperative trick taking game. You might immediately think of The Crew, one of the most popular games of recent years. In The Crew, a group of 3 – 5 players are presented with a number of missions that they must accomplish together. Often these missions involve certain players having to win certain tricks. This is also the case in Animalia, because at the beginning of a game a continent is chosen with corresponding missions that players must resolve. Depending on the difficulty, players must complete a number of missions in a row during a round.
The comparison between The Crew and Animalia is quickly made, but is also quickly undone, because after the premise the comparison largely ends. The Crew must be played with more players and in my opinion is best with 4 or 5 players. Although The Crew has a 2-player variant, they don’t advertise it and that variant is not recommended as far as I’m concerned. Animalia, on the other hand, is aimed at a smaller group of players. You can play the game with 2 or 3 players and even solo. Let’s repeat that: Animalia is a trick taking game that can be played solo and for me this is a reason alone to recommend the game, because the solo mode is no different from the two-player variant and offers enough challenge.
Unlike, say, The Crew (where players are not allowed to communicate with each other), all information in Animalia is public. As a result, the game feels like a completely different kind of challenge than most trick taking games. In fact, most trick taking games revolve around planning based on the limited amount of information you have. Players don’t know exactly what cards other players have in their hands, and through deduction, exclusion and luck try to decipher information and win or lose tricks. Since all the information is public, Animalia is thus much more of a puzzle, but one where players can try to get a high score over and over again.
Players not only want to complete their missions, but some of the cards feature a coin. If the IWC (for the two-player variant an imaginary independent third player) manages to win battles where such cards have been used, players receive budget. This budget can also be used to activate special effects of other cards (to possibly achieve the solution of the ‘puzzle’), but all the money players collect during the game also amounts to their final score. Players thus try to win battles to complete missions, but at the same time they also need to keep certain cards to obtain as many coins as possible. The game contains a total of 3 continents with their own special conditions and missions. This combined with the gameplay element where players want to get high(er) scores, provides players with more than enough variety and replayability.
The small box makes it easy to carry around, but fortunately that small box houses more than enough game. Animalia is highly recommended for fans of trick taking games and cooperative and solo puzzles. I thought that trick taking games would be threatened with extinction due to the abundance of games in that genre, but Animalia fortunately proves otherwise.
