Zoondo

Zoondo is easy to learn and quick to play. The rules take about five minutes to learn. Games take around 10 minutes to play. The game is harder to master than it first appears. Zoondo requires good memory, good strategy, and good tactics to become an ace. Though strategy and tactics are important in most collectible card games, and building is important in a few of the major ones, acute memory is something completely new to the market. Additionally, the combat Touch system is based on what at first appears to be a random toss of a four-sided die. But if you pay attention to the diagonals, you can improve your odds to a fifty-fifty flip of a coin. No building required!

A newcomer to Zoondo can start with any tribe. Eventually, there will be rules for designing your own tribes, so you can customize the game. Great graphics! The Zoondos have a crisp, comic look rich in detail. The graphic design, created by a French cartoon design house, appeals to everyone. It's inexpensive. It only takes $5.00 for two people to start playing. For die-hard Zoondo war lords, a $10 per month budget allows them to maximize their fun with the Zoondo universe.

Zoondo is a game my husband picked up at a gamers convention so it may be a little hard to find locally. This is a card game that I wanted to like but it just wasn't that compelling. The art on the cards is great and the names of all the characters are very funny. The game play is like a simplified chess but played concentration style (all the cards are face down.) I must say I had more fun reading the card names and looking at the pictures than playing. Like I said the cards are great and I really wanted to enjoy the game but trying to memorize the placement of the cards just wasn't that fun. I'd still like to try it again some day and see if it's better than I remember.

Reviewed by Nina Kisch 9/02