Here is a family game with a premise your table will get in one sentence: the animals wait for the keepers to clock off, sneak out for a night on the town, then have to slink back to their pens before anyone notices they are gone. Night at the Zoo, a tile-laying puzzle for 1-4 players from designer Tomas Holek, turns that mischief into about 30 minutes of clever spatial planning.
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Set up your group for freeHolek is the designer behind the sprawling sci-fi hit SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, so it is a treat to see him working in a much smaller, breezier register here. Each round you draft a tile and slot it onto your board, triggering actions and laying a path home for your escapees. The neat bit is that every species moves differently: cheetahs leap, penguins slide and sloths inch along. Your job is to guide all nine figures, three species of three, back home before the night ends. The rules are simple to teach, Capstone reckons, but the game is far from easy to solve. Illustrator Tereza Kovandova gives the whole thing a warm storybook look.
First announced by Czech publisher Albi, Night at the Zoo gets its English release from Capstone Games, the studio that brought Ark Nova to English tables, and debuts at Gen Con 2026 before reaching shops. There is even an expansion, Latecomers, that folds in four more animals without touching the base rules. If your group leans towards cosy, puzzly games you can teach in a minute, keep this one on the list. Looking for regular players to share games like this with? You can find a group on Backseat Gamer.
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See how it worksSources: Capstone Games | Albi | Meeple Mountain
