October 4th: O Zoo lo Mio

I picked up this at Pacificon used for $5. It's a blind-bidding and tile-laying game where players are competing to assemble the best zoo. Each turn, players bid a secret amount (by putting coins in their hand and then all revealing them at once). The winner gets a new tile to add to their zoo. As they add tiles, they build various animal exhibits and the best ones score points at the end of every round.

Played it with Hilary and my sister Marissa. Despite some early confusion about when we got more coins to bid with, Marissa won pretty handily. I like the way this game looks, though I'm not sold on the scoring - there are 5 scoring rounds and each one is worth more than the last, so the first couple rounds end up being a little meaningless in terms of score.