Sanctuary (2025)

“Sanctuary – The Little Ark Nova We Didn’t Know We Needed?”

The reviewer expresses positive anticipation for "Sanctuary," highlighting its cool action tracking mechanism and appealing visual design, which is expected to provide a satisfying gameplay experience.

Sanctuary is a highly engaging game that presents a compelling alternative or spiritual successor to Ark Nova, offering a distinct yet equally enjoyable zoo-building experience.

The reviewer highlights Sanctuary as a streamlined and accessible game inspired by Ark Nova, praising its lighter, faster-to-learn, and elegant gameplay. It is described as a perfect choice for players who enjoy planning, puzzling, and building a continuously growing park through clever tile combinations.

The reviewer highlights Sanctuary as an anticipated tile-placement game that offers a quicker and more engaging experience than Ark Nova, making it easier for players to maintain focus throughout.

The reviewer expresses significant excitement for "Sanctuary," viewing it as a promising, streamlined iteration of Ark Nova with a shorter playtime, making it highly anticipated for its release.

“For me, this is the version of Ark Nova I want to play… Still plenty of tile interactions to work with and lots of good spatial puzzles to solve, but very streamlined and un-fiddly.”

“Sanctuary gets some of the good stuff from the original game into a quicker tile-laying experience that keeps a similar action-selection mechanic while trimming some of Ark Nova’s fat, too. I don’t think this is a game you’ll want if you love Ark Nova; it’s for an entirely different audience, and that’s perfectly fine.”

“It’s one of those rare games where you can just let young or very inexperienced players build a zoo with the animals they like the best and have a good time, but hardcore players can also expend some serious mental energy trying to optimise every decision and placement.”

“I’ve had a lot of fun playing the various modes Sanctuary has to offer. That said, if they ever release some more decks for Sanctuary I will be grabbing them with both hands!”

The reviewer highly praises 'Sanctuary' for its enjoyable gameplay, ease of teaching, and compelling systems, noting that it successfully streamlines the 'Ark Nova' experience. However, when directly compared to 'Ark Nova', 'Sanctuary' is not presented as a definitive replacement, with the reviewer expressing a desire to keep both games in their collection.

“Sanctuary is also about creating a zoo, just like Ark Nova, and according to its newly established BGG page it "modifies and simplifies many of the mechanisms of that game in an elegant and surprising manner". We can expect Sanctuary to be a bit more approachable, but still not a kids board game.”