We review Zoo Vadis, a negotiation game published by Bitewing Games. In Zoo Vadis, you are competing to be the start attraction at the zoo.
Let’s say you’re, oh I don’t know, an Armadillo. You live in a zoo, and therefore, your deepest desire is to become the zoo’s star attraction.
Surely every animal in the zoo dreams of being the most gawked at living thing in any cage in the complex, right? So what else is there to do but to politick and position your way to the top, wheeling, dealing, and betraying until you’re sitting pretty in the place of honor, a steady march to the top of the zoo hierarchy.
If this doesn’t make much sense to you, don’t worry, it doesn’t for me either, but that certainly doesn’t stop Zoo Vadis—the reboot of Reiner Knizia’s somewhat obscure classic Quo Vadis?—from being an absolute masterpiece.
I’ll get to my gripes about the nonsensical nature of the zoo animal retheme of Knizia’s game about politics and intrigue in ancient Republican Rome, but first, let’s dive into this fantastic 3-7 player negotiation game from Bitewings Games.