Evolution Board Game First Impressions

Evolution.

Survival of the Biggest.

In Evolution, players adapt their species in a dynamic ecosystem where food is scarce and predators lurk. Traits like Hard Shell and Horns will protect your species from Carnivores, while a Long Neck will help them get food that others cannot reach. With over 4,000 ways to evolve your species, every game becomes a different adventure.

This is a very simple game of creating a species and trying to survive the fight for food as well as fending off carnivores. Or.. become a carnivore and eat everyone else.

Everyone is going to get 3 cards, plus one for each species you have. Firstly, everyone has to put a card face down into the Watering Hole to determine the amount of plant food available. Each card has an amount of food on it, including negative figures.

Actions

Then everyone plays cards to do a few things…

You can discard one to create a new species.

You can discard to increase the size or population of one of your species.

Or, and the best thing, add a card to your species to develop abilities.

The species you have are represented by cool boards with holes to place cubes in to mark Population and Size.

Feeding

Then, the Feeding Phase.

The cards added to the Watering Hole are revealed and at this point, you know if your turn is going to be good or disappointing 🙂

You take turns grabbing food from the Watering Hole to feed your Herbivores. You’re trying to get enough food to equal the population size of each of your species.

Some abilities let you get more food (Foraging), or take food before drafting for it begins. (Long Neck).

Carnivores reduce the population of Herbivores, assuming they have a smaller size and don’t have the ability to keep themselves safe. (Climbing)

Check out the abilities… They’re cool and thematic.

After feeding, any species without food goes extinct and is removed.

Then, you reduce the population of any species that didn’t get enough food down to the amount of food they did get.

The food you have goes into your score bag.

When the deck run out you play one more round and then you score.

1 point for each food in your bag, 1 point for each population of your existing species and 1 point for each trait of your existing species

Most points win.

Evolution Summary

This is a very simple game with different combinations of traits letting you create weird and wonderful species.

You can use traits like Cooperative to piggyback off your neighbours’ species’ hard work, or use Warning Call to help them out and hinder Carnivores.

There are plenty of options and I’m looking forward to trying new stuff out next time.

Jesta ThaRogue