Zoominoes

Dominoes with zoo animals who have abilities that change the way the game is played. At this point I have beaten the hardest difficulty in the game, and personally I find it very fun. The mechanics are intuitive, the objective is to get to the end of the month day by day. Many people argue the early decisions have no effect on your late game, and to them I say, if you do not make it out of the early game then how do you get to the late game? Almost every animal is usable for the most part, some are removal, some boost your points to make it easier to finish the day, some do nothing but that is okay. Removal is a HUGE and EASY TO ACCESS tool, so if you had to make some decisions early on like taking that goose for the extra money and you do not need him anymore, spend 2 coin to get rid of him! Long story short, if you like using your brain to get to big numbers, you will most likely like this game. Few tips for those who dislike early game: - Make sure you have enough points in the deck to finish the day - It is okay to take the animals that won't be useful in a few days because you can remove them easily - Try using your Zookeeper's ability to your advantage ( Some of y'all just look at their decks ) - You can have unfortunate luck, just try again ( each run is about 10-20 minutes long )

TL:DR; Take the simple but enjoyable game of dominoes, make the pieces 6 sided instead of 4, make it zoology themed and a bit of a Balatro-style number go up roguelike and you get Zoominoes! Let it never be said that consistent theming and a fun art direction cannot sell a game or make it more enjoyable. Its very much an example of "easy to learn, hard to master" kind of game, that really takes off when you find the character whose playstyle bonus and starting line-up gels best with the way you like to play. I'd prefer them all to be better balanced against each other, as the starting 3 are almost always a worse choice than every one you unlock after mathematically- but its not a big problem. As other critiques have said, the main flaw in the game mechanically is that the mythic creatures make the game too easy once you have them. They need to either be powered down significantly, or made much rarer. It is not overexaggeration to say that even on the highest difficulties, the right mythic creature entering your deck wins the game there and then and all you have left to do is play the turns out. A lot of the mythic creatures are much easier to play well with than the defaults, so you don't even have to try as hard. Overall I really liked it, I think if the mythic creature overpower and overabundance was fixed I'd personally enjoy this more than Balatro. The way the 6 sided and colour coded dominos work just clicks better in my brain than the Poker setup for me.

It's a fun puzzle game where you have to work within constraints to get the numbers huge. It's got roguelike elements, challenge modes, and plenty of decision points to keep it interesting and add agency. The game seems to run just as good on my dinky non-gaming laptop as it does on my gaming desktop. The game is ridiculously easy on the lowest difficulty and very tough at the highest. It is possible to beat every challenge in the game currently if you figure out the mechanics enough. That said, some runs are literally impossible to win. That was frustrating once I got to the intermediate stuff, but by the time I got to the more advanced stuff I could usually tell pretty early if a run was going to be busted and just restart. My only complaint with the game would be that randomness hit at the higher difficulties. I wouldn't want the developer to nerf the difficulty though. The challenge was fun, and finally conquering it all felt like a win. I'd recommend the game to anyone who likes strategic roguelikes such as Slay the Spire or Monster Train as a different approach to the formula that makes those games enjoyable. I look forward to seeing how the game evolves moving forward.

One of the best big number roguelikes. Period.

I hate this game. It is too addictive, fun and has silly animal noise that after 60 hrs still make me chuckle. Amazing time to be had but my wife will divorce me and the kids no longer love me as i fall into this game.

I LOVE ZOONIMOES