Ruling — Night at the Zoo

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Night at the Zoobg-457412-en-1e

The game is played over 3 rounds, with each round consisting of 5 drafts.[1][2][3] Each draft contains three phases: the Drafting Phase, the Tile Placement Phase, and the Maintenance Phase.[1]

Drafting Phase

1. Starting with the first player and moving in clockwise order, take an Action tile from the top row of the Game board.[1]

2. Once all players have taken a tile, move the remaining tile to the leftmost empty space in the row below.[1]

Tile Placement Phase

1. Simultaneously, all players use the tile they drafted and those in their Warehouse, in any order, to perform one of the following:

* Place the tile in your Neighborhood.[4]

* Place the tile in your Warehouse.[4]

* Discard a tile to make a special move.[4]

2. You must use the drafted tile, though you do not have to use all tiles in your Warehouse.[4]

3. When placing a tile in your Neighborhood (the inner 5×5 area of your Player board), do not cover the Zoo center space.[4]

4. Immediately resolve the action on the tile you placed and the space you cover, in any order.[4]

5. If a space shows a condition, do not resolve the action unless you meet that condition.[4]

End of Game and Scoring

1. The game ends after 3 rounds.[1][2][3]

2. Calculate Victory points (VPs) according to the standard rules.[5]

3. The player with the most Victory points wins.[6][2][3]

4. In the event of a tie, the player with more animals in their Zoo wins; if still tied, all tied players share victory.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook · p.5 · Gameplay · 1. Drafting Phase · About the Tiles

[2] RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook · p.3

[3] RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook · p.3 · Goal of the Game

[4] RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook · p.6 · 2. Tile Placement Phase · Place the tile in your Neighborhood · Conditions · Action symbols

[5] RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook · p.10 · Gameplay · Drafting Phase: · Reshuffling Solo Game tiles: · Scoring

[6] RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook · p.9 · Food Symbols · Solo game · Setup

Question closed. Friendships intact.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 184 ms · ask 4936 ms · total 5121 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5121 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 5, "score": 0.048139, "snippet": "The game is played over 3 rounds. Each round has 5 drafts, each with the following three phases: Drafting Phase Tile Placement Phase Maintenance Phase Starting with the first player, in clockwise order, take an Action tile from the top row of the Game board. Once all players take a tile, move the re", "headingPath": "Gameplay · 1. Drafting Phase · About the Tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.047123, "snippet": "The game starts with the First Player token assigned to Leo. The game then proceeds according to the standard rules. Leo acts as a regular player; however, he does not have a Player board. Between the tile drafts, the First Player token alternates between you and Leo. At the start of the Drafting Ph", "headingPath": "Gameplay · Drafting Phase: · Reshuffling Solo Game tiles: · Scoring", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "Simultaneously, all players use the tile they drafted, and those in their Warehouse, in any order to: Place the tile in your Neighborhood; OR Place the tile in your Warehouse; OR Discard a tile to make a special move. You don't have to use all tiles in your Warehouse, but you must use the drafted ti", "headingPath": "2. Tile Placement Phase · Place the tile in your Neighborhood · Conditions · Action symbols", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "1 Place the 2 Game board in the center of the table. Each player takes a Player board and chooses a color. Place your Player board in front of you and put the Score tracker in your color on the '0' space of the score track on the Game board. 3 Sort all Bonus tiles, which have no icons, by terrain ty", "headingPath": "Goal of the Game · Game Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "The goal of the game is to guide your animals back to the Zoo most effectively. Draft tiles, then place them on your Player board to trigger actions and create a path for your animals. The game ends after 3 rounds (each round with 5 drafts), and the player with the most Victory points (VPs) wins.", "headingPath": "Goal of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Help the escaped animals to map out the darkened zoo and create a path back to their enclosures, so they can get home safely. Each animal has a unique way of moving and a different scoring condition, so choose wisely when to move, what actions to use - and keep track of all the runaways to get every", "headingPath": "Components", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "3 The goal of the game is to guide your animals back to the Zoo most effectively. Draft tiles, then place them on your Player board to trigger actions and create a path for your animals. The game ends after 3 rounds (each round with 5 drafts), and the player with the most Victory points (VPs) wins. ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Each tile may contain one unique food (out of 7). Score points based on the number of different food types you have in your Neighborhood on tiles (0-1 different food symbols score 0 VPs) . Tiles with a food symbol in your Warehouse do not count. You score only once for your best set of different sym", "headingPath": "Food Symbols · Solo game · Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Gameplay · 1. Drafting Phase · About the Tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Goal of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. Tile Placement Phase · Place the tile in your Neighborhood · Conditions · Action symbols", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Gameplay · Drafting Phase: · Reshuffling Solo Game tiles: · Scoring", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Food Symbols · Solo game · Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 211}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 211 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 211 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.88274 of 1211 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 26, 2026 08:23 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Gameplay · 1. Drafting Phase · About the Tiles	p.5	0.048139 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Gameplay · Drafting Phase: · Reshuffling Solo Game tiles: · Scoring	p.10	0.047123 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	2. Tile Placement Phase · Place the tile in your Neighborhood · Conditions · Action symbols	p.6	0.046898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Goal of the Game · Game Setup	p.4	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Goal of the Game	p.3	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	297
#6	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Components	p.2	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)		p.3	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Food Symbols · Solo game · Setup	p.9	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 13 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Goal of the Game · Game Setup	p.4	#4	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Gameplay · 1. Drafting Phase · About the Tiles	p.5	#1	0.048139 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Food Symbols · Solo game · Setup	p.9	#8	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Special Animal Rules	p.12	#9	0.014493 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)		p.3	#7	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Gameplay · Drafting Phase: · Reshuffling Solo Game tiles: · Scoring	p.10	#2	0.047123 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	2. Tile Placement Phase · Place the tile in your Neighborhood · Conditions · Action symbols	p.6	#3	0.046898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Goal of the Game	p.3	#5	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Gameplay · 1. Drafting Phase · About the Tiles	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)		p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Goal of the Game	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	2. Tile Placement Phase · Place the tile in your Neighborhood · Conditions · Action symbols	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Gameplay · Drafting Phase: · Reshuffling Solo Game tiles: · Scoring	p.10	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Night at the Zoo — Rulebook (corpus doc 211)	Food Symbols · Solo game · Setup	p.9	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 184 ms · first delta 2089 ms · total 5121 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 184 ms · ask 4936 ms · gateway work 5121 ms · total 5121 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2657
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 387
tok/sec: 131.4 tok/sec — 387 output tokens in 2.945 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 6s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 5s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 136), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.