I picked up Ark at the Gathering, since it was:
- Cute — full of Doris' artwork
- Cheap — about $12
- Fast — about 30-45 minutes
I wasn't convinced about the game though. And now I've played three times. I'm going to actually describe the mechanics, since I hadn't heard anything about it.
In Ark the players jam animals (and provisions) into the various cabins of the ark. The game has a deck of animals, a few cards (to show scoring areas), the ark card (to show balance), and wooden lizard-meeples (Leeples?). Three cards are face up, and on your turn you can either:
- Draw 2 cards, or
- Play 1-2 cards.
Each cabin can only hold three cards. You can't place a carnivore into a cabin with a smaller (or equal) sized animal. You can't place an herbivore with provisions. (Omnivores have to follow both rules). If you play a slow animal (or provisions) that's your entire turn. Some animals like it hot, some like it cool. They can't share a cabin. Most importantly, you can't tip over the ark. There are port and starboard cabins, and the weight of either side cannot exceed the weight of the other side by two. [There's a convenient ark tipping card with marker, to keep a running total.]
And some animals are shy. Touchy, even. The won't go into a cabin with a carnivore (even one that won't attack them). Or next to a carnivore. Or opposite one. Once stowed, they're fine. But they can be tricky to load.
Each player starts with some action disks, and you can spend one of them to open a new cabin. (The spent disk just goes to the previous player). As a bonus for opening a new cabin, you must take one of the face up animals. You could play that as a second animal that turn, if you like.
The last rule is that if you play two animals, they can't go in the same cabin. After placing card(s), you put one scoring marker on the appropriate card for each animal (provision, slow, shy, heavy, useful).
Four rain cards are shuffled into the second part of the deck, and the fifth is put on top. When the fifth rain card hits, the endgame starts. During the final rush for the ark, players have to pay 1 of their action disks to place an animal (none can be drawn).
Once everyone passes, you score. But first, you reveal your pet. The second rain card lets each player 'smuggle a pet' onto the ark. Pets have to be somewhat small (size 0-2). Each player puts one pet face down. At the end of the game, these are revealed and scored. So if you smuggled a shy animal onto the ark, you get one more 'shy' point.
At the end of the game, whoever played the most animals in each category gets 10 points, with second and third being worth 6 and 2. Each left over action disk is a point. Most points wins.
I like Ark, except for one thing. There are 8 special animals (marked with an exclamation point). These have rules you have to look up on the back. Most of them are fine, but some have the 'drive out' power. I feel these animals are too good. A drive out animal does just that ... drives another animal out of a cabin. This means that they can be the 4th animal in a cabin, and can usually work around any weight restrictions (since they remove an animal as well as add their own weight). Additionally, the score a point in the category of the animal they drove out. So you can get a slow point while playing two animals, or a shy point while playing near carnivores, or a heavy point without having to work to avoid tipping the ark. And, you don't have to decide which point you get until you play it. You draft a 'useful' animal, you get a 'useful' point. Draft the skunk (a drive out animal) you can decide later which point you need. Very powerful.
My last game cemented this. I got two drive outs randomly (as the face down card). Each one let me win a category in the late game.
My suggested fix is this -- When you drive out an animal, you may place one of your action disks underneath one of your markers in that category. This increases that marker's value from 1 to 1.5 (as with the chimpanzee or brontosaurus). You may only do this if you already have a marker.
I'd still play Ark without the variant, but if you do recognize that a few key animals may swing the game. Anyway, Ark isn't the greatest filler, but it's cute.