Each card in the deck bears a picture of an animal or provision. Each card also has a weight and a temperature preference (hot, cold or don't care). Most animals are omnivores, herbivores, or carnivores. Most cards also belong to one of the five victory categories: slow, shy, heavy, useful or provisions.

Players start with a hand of two cards and Noah's already loaded four animals on the ark just to get things started. On your turn you must decide whether to take two cards into your hand or play one or two cards from your hand. Each card you play must be played in such a way as to keep the ark from tipping over while ensuring that nothing eats anything else along the way. Any time you play a card belonging to one of the five victory categories, you get to put one of your markers on the appropriate scoring card. Usually you'll wish you could do more on your turn than you can.

Loading an ark can be a tricky business. First of all, you have to find cabins for all of the animals and provisions but you have to be careful how you assign them. No cabin can hold more than three cards. Carnivores and omnivores will eat any other animal that doesn't outweigh them, so they can't be put in the same cabin as another animal their size or smaller. Herbivores and omnivores will eat provisions so provisions must be put either in their own cabin or with carnivores. Some animals are shy and won't enter a cabin when a carnivore is around. Furthermore, everything has weight, and the ark must remain balanced while it's being loaded. As if that wasn't enough, some animals like the cold while others like the heat and they can't share cabins either.

You may open a new cabin by playing one of your orange disks (each player starts with 3) to the player on your right. Opening cabins is a bit painful because it means giving your opponents more playing opportunities; but when you open one, you get to take another card into your hand which takes off some of the sting.

Mixed into the lower half of the deck are five "rain cards" which act as a timer. When the second rain card is drawn, players get to choose one animal card from their hand as a "pet". Pets are placed face down and revealed at the end of the game, when they are scored as if they had been placed on the boat. When the fifth rain card is drawn, the end game begins. Players get a few more chances to play cards from their hands (at the cost of giving up one orange disk for each card played) and then the game ends.

When the game ends, the categories are scored and each player also gets one point for each unspent orange disk. Having the majority in a category earns you 10 points. Come in second and you get 6 points. You get 2 points just for placing in the category.

SUMMARY:
The various combinations of cards can really be a bit overwhelming at first, but a useful playaid can be found at Boardgamegeek which helps with this. The game has a nice depth of play with a fair mix of strategy, luck and tactics. It can be also be played in under an hour, which is good for a card game.

Review by Brian