Genius Games - 74568 Ecosystem Ecology Board Game - Educational Wildlife Nature Biology Animal Food Chain Habitat - Stem - Science

I played this the other day as a group of five and it was a great experience and all five of us loved it and want to play again. Because you are drafting cards and all choosing the next card to out in your ecosystem at the same time, there is no downtime and you are engaged all of the time with a fantastic puzzle as you work out how best to score points. Highly recommended.

My family loved playing this game, good fun.

Really good game

Easy and quick game to learn me and the kids play this alot and the other versions aswell. Their ages go from 6-12 and equally we all can win or lose. Helps if they can read but if not aslong as they remember which animals give which points then theyll be fine.

My friend was delighted when she received her gift for all the family. It’s fun and educational and beautifully illustrated and I’m tempted to purchase this game for all of us…in fact I will…we’ll recommend!

Great game - a family favourite

Found it a bit complicated to explain to the children/teens. It helps to teach about the eco system although probably more relevant for other countries outside of UK as we don't get wolves here in Yorkshire.

I'm not sure how much this will help you learn about nature as the description claims (unless for some reason you don't know what a fox looks like) but as an actual game this is surprisingly tactical. I've played with friends a few times and there doesn't seem to be a dominant strategy from what I can tell (which is a good thing) and it was rare for a player to run away with the lead which kept everyone engaged. This deserves to be much more well known amongst boardgame fans, the only reason I stumbled across it is because my friend did his degree in wildlife conservation so the box interested him, if it was not for that we'd probably have passed up on it.

This game was easy to learn and you can't really make a wrong move so it made it fun for the younger players to start. Rounds are quick and everyone wanted to play again

Purtroppo pur non essendo dipendente dalla lingua manca il manuale in italiano.l'ho tradotto e postato su BGG nell'area dedicata al gioco. Divertente, rapido ed abbastanza tattico per il sistema di punteggio

We received this game as a gift and we were all excited to open it (2 adults and kids ages 5, 8 and 10). The artwork is gorgeous and engaging, and the concept of the game is fairly intuitive (drafting a card and placing it in front of you where the animal/landform would work best in the ecosystem). You eventually make a 4x5 grid as you draft and place the cards until you have your ecosystem complete. You then score points based on favorable ecosystem setups (i.e. trout and dragonflies next to streams, bees next to meadows, etc.) The game plays fairly quickly (about 15 minutes) and allows up to 6 players, which is nice for larger families. Every game feels different because there are so many variations for how to display your grid. This game was reminiscent of Sushi Go in terms of drafting and passing your hand. Some of the point scoring felt similar as well (the scoring of wolves in Ecosystem feels like the way to score puddings in Sushi Go). The similarity helped us understand how to play the game better, but the two games feel very different as you play. For one thing, the theme of animals in an ecosystem is way more appealing and relevant to us than a game about sushi. The pictures on the cards were beautiful to look at, and there was a sense of pride and ownership as you drafted cards and created your own ecosystem. The end grid result is also lovely to look at, and our kids were excited to compete for the longest stream or the biggest wolf pack. This game is definitely a winner and will go into our game play rotation! A few tips we found helpful: - Put the cards in a holder for younger kids. This makes it easier to pass and easier for younger kids to easily pick a card after each pass. - Even though it says 10+, our 5 year old picked up on the game fairly quickly (though we do play board games often as a family). Some ways to modify the game for younger kids might be to take a few types of animals out of the game or don’t give negative points for ecosystem gaps at the end of the game. - Scoring can take a long time, and young kids will lose interest during this phase of the game (comes at the end after your grid is made). To keep kids engaged, I had my 8 and 10 year old add up everyone’s scores (they were motivated to know who won, and we got some bonus math practice in) while the 5 year old helped clean up the cards. - While scoring, you need to know which cards did not score any points. You can’t immediately remove them because they may affect scoring for other cards. It can be hard to remember which cards didn’t score, so we simply placed some kind of marker on those cards (gems, buttons, etc.) and at the end of the game, it was really easy to see your ecosystem gaps. - If playing with kids, score one animal at a time. Go around and have everyone tally their bears (and mark their ecosystem gaps as suggested above), then their bees, and so on.

Bought for my 10yr old. She loves all things animals & ecosystems. You can play it quickly by luck, or take your time with strategy. 2-player needs a neutral pile, so we get a Teddy bear to play with us as the 3rd pile. It takes a while to add the scores at the end, but you'd get faster with practice. The cards are small and the pictures are beautiful.

Easy to follow instructions and a simple, inexpensive, card game. The graphics are beautiful and it is a great family game. All ages like it.