Ark Nova (2021)

The reviewer enthusiastically praises Ark Nova as their favorite game of all time, highlighting its intuitive and engaging gameplay, high variability that keeps each play fresh, and seamless integration of theme and mechanics, calling it the greatest two-player board game.

“It’s an incredible game in just about every dimension — it’s just not the accessible title that’s going to cross into the mainstream and expand the audience.”

Rahdo enthusiastically endorses Ark Nova, commending its brilliant design, thematic integration, and immense replayability, ultimately considering it one of his top games of 2021.

Man vs Meeple found Ark Nova to be a highly engaging and well-designed zoo-building game, offering deep strategic gameplay through its action selection and card-driven engine, making it a truly attractive and enjoyable experience.

The reviewer highly praises Ark Nova as a brilliantly cohesive game with excellent combo play, engine building, and variety, stating it significantly improves upon and has largely replaced Terraforming Mars for them. They highlight its strategic depth, clear information, and engaging action system.

“We consider it a must play game. Believe the hype – Ark Nova brings in the punters with a variety most zoos would dream of.”

The reviewer highly praises Ark Nova as a cohesive game with brilliant inner workings, highlighting its excellent combo play, engine building, and strategic depth. They consider it a direct improvement over Terraforming Mars, though they note the solo mode is not particularly thrilling.

“It’s a big game, with a lot of rules overhead, but truly, while in play, it’s intuitive and a joy to play.”

“In Ark Nova’s case, it’s because it does what Terraforming Mars does, but better. I’m giving Ark Nova my Golden Shield Award.”

The reviewer found Ark Nova's solo mode to be very effective, allowing for a quick and less complicated gameplay experience than expected, which they really enjoyed.

The reviewer praises Ark Nova as a sleek and efficient solo experience, highlighting its engaging engine-building and tile-laying gameplay, which can be set up, played, and torn down in just over an hour.

“It’s an incredible game in just about every dimension — it’s just not the accessible title that’s going to cross into the mainstream and expand the audience.”

The reviewers from Before You Play highly regard Ark Nova, highlighting its engaging engine-building gameplay, deep strategic choices, and high replayability. They appreciate how the game's various mechanisms seamlessly integrate to create a satisfying and well-executed experience.

The reviewer highly praises Ark Nova for its unique scoring system, clean design, and fast-paced turns, considering it a significant improvement over similar engine-building games like Terraforming Mars.

Tim Chuon expresses strong admiration for Ark Nova, praising the 'top quality' and 'heirloomish' production of its 3Dition Kickstarter, and acknowledges its status as a top-ranked board game, despite the high price of the deluxe version.

The reviewer expresses strong adoration for Ark Nova, calling it an absolute must-have and highlighting its depth and replayability, though acknowledging its longer playtime might be a hurdle for some.

The reviewer highly praises Ark Nova for its engaging action system, efficient gameplay, strong player agency, and immersive theme, considering it a significant improvement over Terraforming Mars despite finding the solo mode less thrilling.

The reviewer highly praises Ark Nova, placing it among their top ten favorite board games of all time, considering it a must-have and a fantastic Euro game that offers a consistently enjoyable experience and strong replayability.

The Nerds of the West reviewer found Ark Nova to be an incredibly fun and engaging game, praising its consistent art style and deep gameplay, though noting a steep initial learning curve and minor card quality concerns. They concluded it stands favorably against other popular games, placing it just below 'Rise of X' but above the 'Dune Imperium' base game.

Ark Nova is a highly strategic and thematic engine-building game that the reviewer finds superior to similar titles like Terraforming Mars, praising its dynamic action system, engaging player interaction, and unique scoring, with the only noted drawback being its solo mode.

“Ark Nova has captivated many gamers with its blend of strategic card drafting, tile placement, and engaging conservation theme.”

“Make no mistakes, Ark Nova is a fantastic game. It does an amazing job of gently tickling your dopamine receptors up until the late game, when the various combinations start firing and your plans come to fruition.”

The reviewer highly recommends Ark Nova, finding its smooth and intuitive gameplay, satisfying zoo-building, and rewarding progression to hit a 'sweet spot,' despite acknowledging the game's length and somewhat bland art as minor concerns.

The reviewer finds Ark Nova to be a solid and enjoyable game, excelling at creating a satisfying zoo-building puzzle with a well-integrated theme of conservation. While one reviewer expressed some minor reservations preventing 'true love' for the game, the overall sentiment is highly positive, recommending it to those who enjoy scientifically managed zoo-building experiences.

Oliver East highly recommends Ark Nova, finding it to be a great game that consistently prompts strategic reflection and a desire for immediate replays, despite its minor imperfections and extended playtime.

“Ark Nova brings in some big, well known and unique mechanisms to create something unique, engaging and a heck of a lot of fun that is certainly worth the hype.”

“Ark Nova is a dense, satisfying board game that rewards patience and planning. Overall, Ark Nova is one of the strongest modern euros around for those willing to dig in.”

The reviewer initially approached Ark Nova with hesitation due to its perceived length, but was won over by its engaging zoo-building mechanics. He found it to be a very fun and well-executed game that lived up to its reputation and left him wanting to play more.

The reviewers expressed strong enjoyment for Ark Nova, highlighting its clever action selection system and the engaging balance between mechanics and the conservation-focused theme. They stated the game will remain in their collection due to its re-playability and positive reception from friends.

Ark Nova is highlighted as a popular and well-designed game, praised for its engaging action selection system that makes it a standout title.

The reviewer expressed strong enjoyment for Ark Nova, noting that despite initial skepticism due to hype, the game delivered a fun and engaging experience that he preferred over Terraforming Mars and intends to keep in his collection.

The reviewer expresses enthusiastic enjoyment for Ark Nova, evident through his extensive solo playthrough of the game.

The reviewer found Ark Nova to be an outstanding game that lives up to its hype, praising its extensive card variety and sense of growth, making it one of the best games they've experienced.

“Ark Nova is a remarkably good game and certainly up there with the best games of 2021 – if not even in the first place. The feel of building a zoo is wonderfully implemented, and the action-selection mechanism is perfectly interwoven with supporting mechanics.”

The reviewer highly recommends Ark Nova, praising its strategic depth, card variety, and particularly its exceptional solo mode, though noting that the game can be lengthy with potential downtime at higher player counts.

The reviewer highly recommends Ark Nova, particularly highlighting its "absolutely amazing" and strategic solo mode. While praising the overall constant tension and depth, they note that multiplayer games can be quite long, with potential for downtime between turns.

The reviewer found Ark Nova to be a satisfying and tight game, particularly enjoying the varied player boards and two-player experience, despite noting some challenges with the solo mode and potential for runaway leaders in four-player games.

“Altogether, this game lives up to the hype for me and my playgroup. It fills a nice space for us in that it is heavy enough to be rewarding but not so much that you get bogged down in minutiae.”

The reviewer highlights Ark Nova as an engrossing zoo-building game that expertly combines classic Eurogame mechanics with an open-ended style, offering diverse paths to victory and excellent visual design, despite a potentially steep initial learning curve and minor storage issues.

The Game Boy Geek rates Ark Nova an 8 out of 10, calling it an excellent and solid game. He praises its brilliant action selection, fun animal theme, and engaging spatial puzzle, though he notes the game can be long and has less player interaction than he typically prefers.

“There’s no getting around it: Ark Nova is very good. If you enjoy your games heavy, featuring lots of meaty decisions, quick turns, a personal zoo, and a buffet of combos available in mid- and late-game turns, you can’t really go wrong with Ark Nova.”

“A heavyweight strategy game with loads of content and a remarkable attention to the details of the zoo industry.”

The reviewer finds Ark Nova to be a very good and enjoyable game with clever design, but its extremely large and often random card deck presents a notable drawback to the overall experience.

The reviewer, despite acknowledging Ark Nova as a well-designed game with significant depth and replayability that he enjoys, ultimately found himself conflicted and never experienced the 'magic spark' that makes other similar games truly resonate with him after numerous plays.