Habitats Game

Create a new wildlife habitat as you drive your jeep through a tiled resource area to choose which animals to populate it with while also planting flowers, building watchtowers, erecting gates for entry, pitching camps, and welcoming tourists.

In this 40-minute tile-laying game for 1-5 people, players move through a grid populated with preserve tiles and choose one every turn to place in their wildlife preserve. The animal tiles belong to grassland, water, forest, or desert terrains.  The bottom of each tile shows the type(s) and numbers of terrain tiles the animal likes to be next to, as well as the number of points it earns if those requirements are met.  Insects might only require flowers next to them rather than a specific terrain, and flowers themselves earn one point each.  Watchtowers present players with a pattern of either animal or flower tiles that earn additional points, while tourist tiles score points if you have a specific number of matching terrain tiles in the preserve.  Gates have white borders on different numbers of sides, which must not be placed next to adjacent tiles, and camps only score points if no adjacent camps are placed next to them. 

The other way to score points in Habitats is by meeting the public goals that are available to all players at the beginning of the game.  Two goals are scored at the end of each round, or year.  After that, players total up all points for the tiles in their wildlife preserve and the person with the most points wins the game! This is an easy-to-learn, quick-moving, portable game that has enough strategic thinking involved to provide a challenge as well.  It is also beautifully produced and has a well-written manual.