I am a huge fan of Ark Nova. It is one of my favorite games of all time. Sometimes when a new game comes out I get really obsessed with it for several plays,  but then the shine wears off and I’m over it. After an embarrassingly large number of plays, both in person and on-line, that doesn’t seem likely to happen with Ark Nova anytime soon. It is still interesting every single time I play, and it works well with any number of players, although 4 is really best only with experienced players. In fact, it seems I have played this game 145 times in the past year; about 75% of those games were on BGA, both solo and multiplayer and the rest were live.

With all of these plays you think I’d be dying for an expansion, something to breathe some fresh air into the game, Well, no, not really. I do have the map packs, and those are nice, but I still really enjoy the base game. When it comes down to it, I am not always a fan of expansions. Sometimes they fix a broken game, and that’s fine, but a lot of times I feel like the expansion doesn’t add anything to the game for me and is just an attempt to keep the game alive – here, have a few new cards, or a bonus board! Oh, don’t get me wrong – I am a sucker for buying all the expansions; I just feel like I rarely end up using them or caring about them in the end.

So, when the Ark Nova expansion came out, I of course picked it up because I love the game so much and I am all about set collection. . . .   and I am happy to report that it adds to and enhances the game. It’s not just chrome; there are actual, substantial enhancements and additions that add new twists while still keeping the main components of the game.

The expansion box is not large, but there is a lot in there. It includes:

New Cards

Sea Animals – these creatures go in two new special aquarium enclosures that must be placed next to water.  About half of the sea animals are reef dwellers; when you play a reef dweller you trigger the special abilities of all the other reef dwellers in your zoo.

There are also sponsor cards that are sea cards; these cards as well as all the animal cards that have a wave icon; when one comes up in the display the first card is discarded and replenished.

There are also some cards that replace cards from the original game; in some cases the iconography has been adjusted to include the expansion and in some they have been adjusted to reflect the new cards.

New Action Cards

Each of the five action cards now has four alternate versions with special abilities. These cards are drafted at the start of the game and each player will replace two of their action cards with the special cards. Some of the cards give you a bonus action, while others improve the normal effect.

New Bonus Tiles

There are 6 new bonus tiles, plus one additional tile that has been edited to reflect that it can be played at a later time, something that is true for some of the new bonus tiles as well. In addition to the bonus tile places on the board, one is now placed at the end of the reputation track as well. If you hit the end of the reputation track first you can choose to take the bonus tile rather than 1 appeal. 

New University

There is a new university tile that includes an “all animals” icon. If you take this university you take a university with the animal icon of your choice; you are now considered to have an additional animal icon of that type. You don’t have an additional space; you are still only able to have a max of 3 universities.

Final Scoring Cards

There are new final scoring cards to reflect the new elements.

Markers

There are new wooden markers for the various tracks as well as animeeples that you use on the left side of your player board as well as to mark the conservation projects you have supported. The bits are more thematic than wooden cubes.

My Thoughts on the Game

I love it.  While I still love the base game, I really enjoyed the chance to incorporate the new animals, and with them new strategies. The new action cards spice things up a bit by allowing you to tweak an action to better fit what you need to do.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about the special powers, but they only enhance things. 

The aquarium/sea creature theme fits in just fine, and the designer did a good job of making them feel integrated; some reptiles can be both aquatic and land, and cards have been updated to include the water icons.

The new elements do speed up the game a bit, as the enhanced actions allow you to build your score faster, so if the game has felt too long to you, this may help. 

Also, the bits are really, really cute. I mean, cubes are fine and totally functional, but, to quote Lyle Lovett, I go for penguins. . .

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Thoughts of Other Opinionated Gamers

Mark Jackson: I’m solidly with Tery on this excellent expansion… in a base game with such a huge deck of cards (seriously, Ark Nova’s deck exerts gravitational pull), I was worried that adding cards would dilute the appropriate mix – but this expansion seems carefully calibrated to avoid that problem.

I’ve played both with the new action cards (which I really enjoyed) and without (which I also enjoyed) – the aquarium elements work either way. 

It does feel like there’s a tiny bit more room to maneuver inside the system – and I’d echo Tery’s contention that the new elements cut some time off the game. Both my solo plays and multiplayer plays with the expansion have been very positive experiences.

Nathan Beeler: We play a lot of Ark Nova in our house. Not as much as Tery it seems, but it’s one of the few games of any length that I can remember leaving set up after we finished, simply because we wanted to play again immediately. That’s just not a thing we do. That’s how much we love Ark Nova.

So when the Marine World expansion (and Maps 9 and 10) entered our house this Christmas, we had fairly high expectations. Surprisingly, it did not disappoint. All of the new elements feel like they bring something interesting. I especially like the wave cards, which seem like they let you see more of the deck. (In reality, I’m not sure they even counteract what the expansion adds to the deck, but they do keep the card row from getting stale.) I also really like the new action cards and the drafting phase around that. It’s not a huge change, but merely another thing to start players off on asymmetric footing. Also really nice is the fourth university type, to keep that section from getting too repetitive. I love, love, love the new counters (though the reputation counter is a bit derpy looking). The new conservation tokens for each player are something of a godsend in that they help remind players to not use a token from the general pile and to get their bonus from it.

All told, I wouldn’t say the expansion is critical, but it is now my preferred way to play.

Jonathan F.: It is a very good expansion, but for your first 20 games, you don’t need it. It is not one of those ‘must have’/’fixes something broken’ expansions. It adds spice to an already excellent dish. For example, the wave icon is cool, but starting out, it is nice being able to plan for cards to remain there until the coffee break unless an opponent takes it.  In addition, I don’t think the expansion will change your mind – if you don’t like Ark Nova, this expansion likely won’t change your opinion.

Dan B.: After playing a few times with the expansion, I think the new action cards are good. The new animal cards can be interesting, but it really depends on if enough of them come out early enough. If not, they might still be useful but the reef effects won’t have time to build up. I would have preferred it if the new cards replaced some existing ones to keep the deck at the same size (it’s already too large, in my opinion).

Patrick K.: I have now played about a dozen times with the expansion, although it can ‘feel’ like a bit less, mostly because the new cards are shuffled into a pretty hefty deck, which means that you won’t see the majority of them in any given game. On the downside, that means that potentially super-strong strategies like running a chain of reef dwellers is unreliable – but then again, strong play usually means paying attention to the public conservation projects and prioritizing those types of cards. I really like the new university, which not only gives you a chance of winnowing that hefty deck for what you need, but also allows for divergence among the set of unis you end up with. I am less enamoured of the new ‘draftable’ action cards, some of which seem a fair bit stronger than others – I worry that these add an unnecessary dash of imbalance to the game. They’re fun to play around with, and act as an easy balancing mechanism (just give them to the weaker players), but hardly essential. Worst of all are the new wooden markers, which are just pointless. The score track markers are too large, and the conservation project markers are oversized and fiddly. When the markers are larger than the squares they’re intended for, you know that form has overtaken function.

Thankfully, the new cards and the new university more than offset the downsides, leaving me an enthusiastic proponent of Marine Worlds as a ‘must include’ expansion, not unlike the first Arnak expansion.

Ratings of the Opinionated Gamers

I Love It: Tery, Mark Jackson, Nathan Beeler, Simon Weinberg, Patrick Korner

I Like It: Jonathan F.

Neutral: Dan B.

Not for Me: