Zoo Ball Review

It's not hard to imagine Zoo Ball as the national past-time of Zootopia. In this mixed-species game of rugby each team is attempting to hurl their agile scoring player onto a two dimensional goal. While pieces violently collide with rabbits and lions shooting every which way, it's a wholesome bout of on-field maneuvering sans gore. This isn't the drenched-in-crimson Blood Bowl. This is a dexterity game of flicking pieces across a felt field and reveling in the dramatic moments.

As a physical product, this is surprisingly tight with little waste. You have four teams worth of wooden tokens and their accompanying sticker sheet, a rule pamphlet, and a nice felt mat to spread out across the table. That's it. Players supply their own fat fingers and Gatorade.

The field is marked with separate goals and setup positions for two and four player play. Life’s pretty simple and easy-going when squaring off against a single opponent. You setup your three defenders and single scorer in your starting area. Then you and your opponent take turns flicking. The object is to have your scoring piece-typically a cute bunny or meerkat-settle in the goal ring opposite yours.

The felt mat is nice, although it may take some effort to smooth out the creases.

You can teach this game in less time than it took you to read this sentence. On your turn you either flick ALL three of your defending pieces, or your single scoring disc. We do this back and forth until someone notches a goal which ends the game. That's all there is to Zoo Ball. Bam; review finished.

"Wait a second!" squeaks Judy Hopps. Wait a second indeed.

It's easy to dismiss Zoo Ball conceptually as just another dexterity game. It’s a hard sell when we have wonderful titles like Tumblin-Dice and Coconuts, the latter allowing you to shoot little rubber poo nuggets into cups with monkey catapults. But, like the Transformers, there's much more to Zoo Ball than meets the eye.

That activation system of choosing to flick three grunts or a single scorer adds a great deal of depth. The fact that you can carom off your own pieces and indirectly nudge them forward opens up the play space. After a couple of games legitimate strategy begins to develop and even setting up your pieces gains significance. The fight for field position weighted against sacrificing offense places a central decision point upon the game that is tough and subtle.

Secondly, the restriction of length to a single goal was immensely clever. It keeps play at a very brisk 5-15 minutes while upping the drama considerably. Every long distance shot slicing across the field is momentous. You stop breathing for a moment and maybe even close your eyes as you can't bear to witness. It's intense and feels as though you're in the dying seconds of a tied game, tension kicking you in the guts with a muddy cleat over and over.

Yet, the one odd conceit about Zoo Ball is that it's not particularly special as a two player experience. It works and it's certainly fine, but it's not standout and likely content simply staying on your shelf and slumbering in that excellent Osprey packaging. What you really want is a full complement of four.

A lively crowd braces for the start of a four player bout.

Zoo Ball as a four player free-for-all is a riot. The game and rules are identical although you move to using the corner goals. Drama persists as the first person to score in the area opposite theirs wins. The big shift here is in the additional layer that provides a shot of adrenaline to the dynamics of play.

Since the stakes are so high, temporary alliances and fleeting conjoined power plays flirt in and out of the match. While all you really want to do is score in Ben's goal at the opposite end, if Jen is about to win the game then you need to shift into a defensive formation and protect your opponent's net. The cutover to worrying about every single participant at the table props up an otherwise direct experience.

This pull of shifting field position and the demands it creates support a vibrant scene of trash talking. The larger group also provides for a more vocal crowd when you take that long shot and barely miss. The "oohs" and "aaahs" are loud enough to wake your sleeping kid upstairs. Yeah it's two in the morning and you have to work in six hours, but you just can't stop playing this damn game.

Hold your breath, line up your shot, and make sure you don't miss.