An animal park of tiles and dice

🐾Spectacular is one of those thinky drafting games, with really simple rules and game structure, but multiple scoring conditions and requirements that sometimes even contradict each other. To score high you have to do everything perfectly, but sometimes making some compromises will be better than getting too greedy and failing. 😄 In this game you are building an animal park by drafting tiles and dice, and skillfully placing them to have the best park.

Each turn you will draft a tile or die from a personal supply, and one from a supply board that gets passed around. Placement rules are fairly simple, with a few important nuances. Basically the higher the die values the better, but breeding tiles require 1s or 2s, and 6s are harder to place due to prerequisites. But I think to understand the greatness of the game, it’s best to talk about the scoring aspects. 😉

🦏There is a set collection element. The more different types of animals your park has at the end, the more points you get. Sounds simple enough, but it is hard to pay attention to.
🐒You are trying to make big contiguous areas of matching color, filled with high value dice. However you also need to have breeding tiles because they act as quintessential multipliers for the dice values.
🐅You want to create full circles by connecting 3 matching tiles (with partial circles) so you can place a Watchtower on them. Surrounding watchtowers with 3 dice scores them additionally.
🦌There are also mission tiles that give you additional challenges regarding both dice values and the way you lay out your tiles. 
🦧Additionally there is a mid-game scoring, that only checks for a connecting group of dice adjacent to your park entrance.

As you play you have to keep all these 5 aspects in your mind, but of course you cannot do everything, so you will have to sacrifice a few things, especially as space is limited. Other players are also drafting stuff away from the shared supply boards, so you have to prioritize and take what’s essential.

Like I said, simple but thinky - so not so simple at all. 😅 And a beautiful table presence. 
The perfect formula for a gateway game. 🙌