Ark Nova Digital is coming to Steam Early Access on December 5th, and the time is drawing near for you to build your own bustling zoo! 

The tabletop version of Ark Nova has earned tremendous critical acclaim since its release in 2021, including the Board Game Geek Heavy Game of the Year. Now, designer Mathias Wigge’s modern classic gets a full-featured digital board game adaptation on Steam.

In these final weeks leading up to the Early Access release, we’ll be taking a closer look at the game in a series of preview articles, starting today with an overview of Ark Nova’s fundamentals. Be sure to Wishlist the game on Steam today to stay updated!

An Overview of Ark Nova 

This is everything I want a game to be – 10/10

-Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower

Ark Nova invites players to build a thriving zoo, presenting them with one of 10 distinct maps and challenging them to fill it with all manner of exciting buildings and animal enclosures. But there’s a lot more to it than just showing off pretty animals — modern zoos represent a nexus of different scientific disciplines crossing together, aimed towards the conservation, preservation, and betterment of our planet’s beautiful wildlife.

Building the Best Zoo

A good zoo should serve two important purposes: appealing to the masses, and acting as a hub for research and conservation efforts. These two goals work in tandem with each other; highly popular zoos create revenue and raise awareness among the general public, which in turn attracts sponsors to fund scientific endeavors. That’s why, in Ark Nova, your main objective is to achieve a healthy balance of both.

Players achieve victory by accumulating the most Victory Points, which are earned from two different sources: Appeal and Conservation Points. Appeal is primarily earned from the animals and facilities in your zoo, and Conservation Points can be earned in a variety of ways, such as supporting conservation projects, achieving long-term goals, and working with sponsors. 

The Heart of Ark Nova – The Five Actions

Ark Nova has a lot of systems working together, but its core gameplay is actually quite simple: each turn, you will choose ONE of FIVE actions to play. Everything in Ark Nova comes back to these five actions, and by understanding each one, the entire game clicks into place.

Each action’s abilities differ based on their position in the row. In this arrangement, the Build action would be at level 2, being second in the row. That means the player could construct a Building with the maximum size of 2.

Each action has five different “levels” of power from 1-5 (left to right, depending on which slot the card is in front of you), and when you use one, it slides back down to 1 (the first, lowest power slot) and bumps the other cards to the right. This creates an interesting dynamic where actions get stronger the longer you don’t use them, and you have to be tactical about which one you choose each round.

Let’s take a look at these actions:

Ark Nova includes a whopping 255 cards, which include a wide variety of animals, sponsors, and conservation projects. These cards are the meat and potatoes of the game; they have unique costs, benefits, and special abilities, with near-limitless potential in the ways they interact with one another. The Cards action is what allows you to draw more of them into your hand, whether from a public card row, or randomly from the draw deck.

The various facilities and animal displays are the backbone of any zoo, and the Build action allows you to construct them. You will primarily be constructing Animal Enclosures with your Build action (which get more expensive the bigger they are) but there are a few unique buildings as well that will each afford their own special benefits. The power of the Build action determines the size of the structure you can build, so even if you have enough money for a 4-sized Animal Enclosure, you’ll have to wait until Build is at level 4 to construct it!

Buildings can also unlock certain bonuses that are waiting for you on your board — this 4-sized enclosure is being placed on top of two bonus icons, one of them being +10 money, which is gained immediately.

Your enclosures are wasted space unless you’ve got something inside them, and that’s where the Animals action comes in! This action allows you to play Animal Cards, which will populate your empty Animal Enclosures. 

The main purpose of Animals is to generate Appeal, which is one of the two main tracks for victory. However, Animals have interplay with nearly all of the other systems in the game, so there’s far more to consider when you’re playing them. For example, Sponsors and Conservation Projects might incentivize you to collect a specific type of Animal in abundance, such as Predators or Reptiles. Additionally, each Animal provides a unique effect when acquired, which may make them more (or less) valuable based on the context of your board. Choose wisely!

Between the costs, benefits, and abilities that Animals provide, choosing the right one for your zoo is the kind of tactical decision that makes up the heart and soul of Ark Nova’s strategic depth.

Sponsors are valuable third parties who take an interest in your zoo, and similar to animals, they’re represented by cards. The Sponsors action allows you to choose one of two options: raising money, or playing a Sponsor card from your hand. Sponsor cards grant many benefits, which may be immediate, ongoing, at the end of the game, or all of the above. This action is always useful for raising money in a pinch, but it also has the potential to create synergy with other areas of your zoo.

Sponsors can give a sense of direction to your game. The Expert on the Americas, for example, rewards players who focus on playing animals from North and South America.

The Association action allows you to send an Association Worker to the Association Board, where the majority of your conservation and scientific efforts will be concentrated.

Through the Association Board, you can pay income for Conservation Points, increase your Reputation, team up with Partner Zoos, engage in valuable University Research, or participate in Conservation Projects. Each of these affords their own unique rewards, but in a nutshell, what they all have in common is they all work towards unlocking the true potential of your zoo — the more Association Tasks you perform, the more options and opportunities you’ll open up for yourself as the game goes on.

Layers of Strategy

Everything in Ark Nova revolves around the five core actions. You draw Cards in order to get more Animals, which generate Victory Points after you Build enclosures for them. Meanwhile, Sponsors and Association workers provide synergies with your animals and contribute to Conservation efforts, which also increase your Victory Points. Everything works together at all times, and striking the right balance between the actions is the key to success.

 

Learn More About Ark Nova Digital

In addition to the compelling gameplay of the tabletop original, Ark Nova Digital will also provide new ways to play your favorite zoo-building strategy game when it releases soon on Steam Early Access. As we get closer to its December 5th release date, we’ll be dropping more previews about what you can expect from the digital version, such as Solo Play, Challenges, and unique modes such as the Special Exhibit. 

Stay on top of the latest Ark Nova Digital news by Wishlisting it on Steam today, and in the meantime, be sure to join our Discord if you want to meet some other aspiring zoologists!