The game Moving Wild is a quick to learn, fun to play card drafting game where you will be collecting cards to develop your very own national park filling the various areas you acquire with a variety of animals and upgrades.
I originally came across the game at UK Games Expo at the Oink Games stand earlier this year where they had some early copies to purchase and were providing demos of the game. The games bright artwork caught my eye from a distance and I was intrigued by what this game had to offer.
First Impressions
When I first saw the game I found the box eye catching and the components looked interesting so was keen to learn more. At the show they had a presentation area that showed the components laid out on display which showed the simplistic yet impactful artwork of the cards and the point tokens. The reverse of the box on this game I found rather useful, unlike many small box games, as they were able to give you a bit of flavour text to set the theme of the game as well as explain briefly how it plays. I also found the Oink team members showing off the games very helpful and were happy to answer any questions I had about the game.
Game Play Overview
To set up the game you will give each player a base camp to start their national park with and then shuffle all of the area, animal and upgrade cards together placing them in a face down pile. You will then place the scoring chips to one side to be used later on.
The game is played over 3 rounds with a new hand of cards being dealt to each player at the beginning of each round, the number of cards dealt to you will depend on the number of players around the table and will change between rounds. Each player then chooses a card from their hand simultaneously and place it next to their Base Camp face down. After all players have chosen a card to keep they will then reveal it turning it face up. Then each player passes the remaining cards in their hand to the next player. The cards are passed clockwise on rounds 1 and 3 and counter clockwise on turn 2. You will continue following these two steps till you have run out of cards for the round.
After all cards have been drafted you will then start developing your park by placing animals into areas to fill up the locations while meeting the animals needs to score points. During this phase you can manipulate areas to make them more suitable for your animals by playing upgrades onto them if you have them. You will need to pair the animal with the right areas as each area in the game has a multiplier and each animal has a happy camper level which will be used to score points at the end of the round so placement is important. Once you are happy with your placement of animals, upgrades and areas it is time to score the round.
There are 3 ways to score in Moving Wild, Normal, Family and Expert, you will choose one of these scoring types at the beginning of the game and score like this at the end of each round. In the normal variant you get -2 points for every animal not in an area and for each area not fully occupied. In family mode this penalty is halved to only a -1. In the Expert variant you will lose a point for each remaining space in an area as well as the total spaces on animal cards that were not placed into your park. At the end of the 3rd round the player who has the most points will be declared the winner.
Differences between this game and Zuuli
The game Moving Wild is designed by Chris Priscott who is also the creator of Zuuli which this game is a new rendition of. It is frequently asked "What's the difference between this and the original Zuuli game?", so we thought we would share with you what the differences are. First of all from an appearance point of view one of the big differences between the two is the art style and that Moving Wild uses point chips to keep track of victory points while Zuuli uses a score pad.
The other thing you will notice is the cards and box are smaller than the original, with the box for Moving Wild being less than half the size of Zuuli. Looking through the cards for both games there is only a few changes namely there are 3 new animals, the penguin, eel and manatee, which the penguin and eel are replacements for the jellyfish and angler fish that were in Zuuli while the manatee is a completely new card added to the game. When looking at the upgrades the Early Access upgrade has been swapped for the new Observatory which offers some more flexibility to the game providing some new strategies. In regards to area cards in Moving Wild and the Enclosure cards in Zuuli a reasonable amount has been changed from offering a more balanced selection of habitat areas for the animals to reside in and the number of spaces at most of the locations being adjusted. The final difference on the cards is that the card you start with in Moving Wild no longer has the rule on it that it has to be full for you to score it but does have a reference on it to tell you how many cards to deal each player each round at the various player counts which is really helpful.
From a rules perspective the two games run very similarly to each other both utilising a pick one and pass the rest on mechanic. The main difference for standard play is the scoring. Where Zuuli only has one way of scoring this game has three. Also instead of deducting points equal to the value of the animals that are not housed in an enclosure at the end of a round in Moving Wild it is -2 points per animal not housed and -2 points per area without all its spaces filled. The other difference you will notice in the gameplay is in the Solo play variant as you can now choose which difficulty you want to play the game at against the Collector and the Collector no longer scores extra points each round based on the habitats on each of his animals cards.
Pros and Cons
There are many things I quite like about this game, I enjoy the card drafting mechanic, the way you create the national park after choosing all your cards each round as well as the strategic elements of being able to move the animals and areas around to get the best score each round. The symbology is quite self explanatory and the text is very clear making it easy to identify what is going on as you choose and play cards with the colours of the symbols and text being paired well to stand out against the background colours. The components are made to a good standard with a nice finish to them and the point chips are on sturdy card stock. The only downside for the components for me is the art on the cards as I would like something that depicts the animals in a more realistic form but that is personal taste and the choice of design fits the other games in the publishers range. I feel the amount of components in the box for its size is brilliant and is something Oink Games is well known for now which makes it perfect for taking with you when you are out and about.
Final Verdict
Overall, I have really enjoyed playing this game it is small enough to take with you making it a great pocket game and offers a reasonable extent of replay ability with the variety of cards and strategies on offer. I do prefer this over Zuuli due to some of the new additions in this rendition which feel as though they give a couple more strategic options and you also have a bit more variety in how the game is scored depending on the difficulty you are going for. This game would make a perfect addition for someone who likes to play a game out and about or those looking for a game to kick off a good gaming evening. I feel this game covers enough bases and plays at the right speed that a large number of people will find enjoyment in what this game brings to the table.
This will definitely be one I will be adding to my bag of games for game night, will it find its way into yours?
In conclusion, we would rate this game a 9.3/10
If this article has inspired you to get your own copy, you can find it at the link below:
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