Zoo Keeper

Description from the designer:

All of the animals have escaped. From video footage throughout the park, the monkeys seem to be responsible. Whatever the case, it falls to you to restore order. Work with a team of zoo keepers to return the animals to their habitats.

Zoo Keeper is a cooperative card drafting and set collection game for 3-7 zoo keepers. The goal is simple: work through the entire deck, collecting sets of animals so that no zoo keeper exceeds his hand limit (usually six cards).

Play starts with the player who most recently visited a zoo and works clockwise. It will likely be advantageous to shuffle the cards thoroughly before play begins. Each round, or “card drafting phase”, one zoo keeper draws cards equal to the number of zoo keepers in your team.

Each player chooses one of the available cards and passes the cards clockwise. The last card goes to the last zoo keeper. Players place their chosen cards face up on the table in front of them. These cards are considered your “hand”. Zoo keepers look to create sets of two to five cards. Each card features two numbers. The upper left number is the number needed to complete a set. The upper right number is how many of the card are in the deck. (The number 3/2 means that players must first collect a set of 3 before a set of 2.) Collect sets to free up your hand. Most cards also describe an action that is taken when a set is collected. Zoo keepers may win by collecting a specific set of cards (which varies based on the number of players in the game) or by working through the deck without any zoo keeper exceeding his hand limit (usually 6 cards). If any zoo keeper exceeds his hand limit before the deck runs out, zoo keepers are defeated.