Wild Life (1964)

Overview

Not to be confused with Ravensburger's famous Wildlife Adventure game, although there are some similarities. Both come in the same (very) large-box format, and in Wild Life, much as in Wildlife Adventure, players travel about a large world map seeking to visit the habitats of rare and exotic animals.

With a box description reading "An ecology game that fosters wild animal conservation" and "The game of world-wide travel to search for, trade, and collect wild and rare animals to fill a winning zoo," Wild Life is primary a roll-and-move game where players circle a set map with various stops, at which they might collect Harbor, Transport, or "Serata" cards (which may help or hinder your progress similar to the cards in Monopoly) or collect, trade, and sell various animal cards in an attempt to collect the specific sets needed to fill the specific "zoo" each player chose at the beginning of the game. The first player to collect all the cards needed to fill their chosen zoo wins the game.

Interestingly, although the game says it can support up to five players, if there is a fifth player that person actually only acts as the game's banker and does not actually participate in the game otherwise.

The game is asymmetrical; each zoo has its own strengths and weaknesses and favour different strategies.

Note that there are several different versions of the game with varying mechanics, some of which have much more strategy than others; see the community wiki for details.