Habitats 3rd Edition

In Habitats, each player builds a large animal park without cages or fences. The animals in your park need their natural habitats: grassland, bush, rocks, or lakes. For example, a zebra needs a large area of grass and some nearby water, while a bat needs rocks, bush, and water, a deer needs bush and grass, and a crocodile needs mostly water. There's a snake, a baboon, a bee, an elephant, an otter, a lizard, a tortoise, an eagle, a meerkat, a scorpion, a pig, a catfish, a rhinoceros, etc., each with its own landscape requirements—a total of 68 different animals.

Each player begins their individual park with an entrance tile and is represented in the animal tile marketplace by a ranger figure. On a player's turn, they take the tile to their left, right, or front, place their figure on the space they just vacated, and then move a tile to the location where their figure began their turn.

When you place an animal tile in your park, you also add its main landscape—the base area for the animal—to your park. When you place this new animal, its own piece of landscape can help meet the needs of your other animals, for example, the water on a hippo tile fulfilling the neighboring otter's need for water. Thus, with each new tile, it becomes increasingly difficult to meet the animals' land needs.

Not only can you expand your park with different landscape types, plants, and animals, but you can also improve its profitability by building additional access roads, hiking trails, and watchtowers.

Habitats lasts three seasons, during which each player receives 6-9 new tiles for their parks. The player who best achieves the season's goal receives bonus points, while second and third place players receive a lower score. At the end of the game, each player receives points for each tile in their park, depending on whether the tile's requirements are met. Whoever has the most points wins!