Northstar Game Studio - Evolution Climate Board Game - Includes Climate Expansion | Create Species in This Strategy Game for Adults, Teens and Families | 2-6 Players, Age 12+

Evolution (the game) manages to pull off what few modern games can. On the one hand, the engine and the basic rules of the game are fairly simple. Every action is based off playing the trait cards you have in hand. Play a card to put food in the water hole (everyone has to do this each turn); or play a card for its traits (the words); or play a card to gain a species; or play a card to grow your species. Then, you eat the food. The food you eat is your points. If you don't eat enough food, some of your population starves. Draw more cards. Rinse, repeat until the deck is dry. It was simple enough that when I played for the first time with my 6 and 8 year olds, who typically stink at action based games, both were doing just fine.But the traits themselves give an excellent level of complexity to the game. Once you start having multiple species who have evolved into carnivores, who have horns to defend against attacks, who can migrate and climb and hibernate, etc etc etc., the gameplay blossoms wonderfully. The choices you make on your turn become meaningful, which is precisely where you want to be in a game like this: you want your choices to matter, not the engine. Yet, because all the rules for each trait are on cards, everyone can see exactly what's going on. No one is unfairly surprised because the rules for "fatty tissue" is buried in the appendix. This also makes Evolution easy to teach."What does climbing do, dad?""What does the card say?""Oh, right. So you can't attack me! Ha!"I am very excited to get this to the table again. Far too often, modern games have complex rules to go with complex gameplay. To have a family-friendly, quasi-educational game like Evolution buck that trend is a great thing for families and groups who enjoy light to medium games.Note that we played without the climate rules, as suggested by the developer. They will certainly make the game more complex, as you are worried not only about being eaten by your kids' carnivores but the risk of hypothermia, heat exhaustion, and volcanic eruption. I will bring these rules out after 4 or 5 playthroughs, I imagine. For more advanced gamers, they seem absolutely great and a lot of fun. I'd use them as soon as you have a handle on the base strategies.

Amazing game, loads of fun! A game you can actually play with a wide variety and # of players which is rare. First opening the box and looking at all the pieces and the manual you think it is complicated, too complicated. However, once you play it once you quickly get the hang of the concepts and strategy. I suggest you use YouTube video tutorials as an introduction to new players rather than reading the manual; it goes much faster and as long as one person knows the messy details you can bring them up when needed. I also suggest that you use the alternative fast play style for all #s of players rather than just the 5-6 players as suggested. It makes a big improvement in the flow of gameplay leaving each player with less downtime and feels more like a video game where everyone is playing at once together rather than waiting a turn.The artwork is gorgeous, the materials feel high quality. The Climate part can be left out if you want to simplify things. I worried for a first play through with non-serious gamer friends that the Climate part would be too complicated, but they insisted and it actually turned out great! Climate definitely adds interesting effects and strategies, and it might even be a way you can turn some people around to understanding climate change without actually debating and throwing science at them! The game overall certainly pulls in all aspects of evolution, but never once explicitly throws in science. Survival of the fittest at its best!

My wife and I bought this to bring to a family get together, and it was a big hit. We have played about 5 times now, and each time it feels unique and engaging. I would recommend to a new buyer reading the rules yourself beforehand, and instead of just verbally explaining the rules, I would hand out the quick reference cards the game comes with and then explain each of the four parts of a round as you play it with them the first round. I found with this game, learning it definitely came faster as you played.Additionally, I was thoroughly impressed with the thickness of the cardboard tokens, species boards, and watering hole. They are extremely durable, and feel like a high quality product. Even my 8 year old nephew was able to easily pick up and use the pieces (although the nuances of the strategy were a little much, but overall he played just fine with the adults and slight parent coaching).The cards as well were pretty firm, and the instructions are glossy and the pages have some weight.

So, this takes a minute to set up and learn how to play - plan on finding a youtube video and really walking through it before teaching it to others. Then plan on a 'practice game' to try it out. It's not that it's hard to learn, it just takes a minute to learn all the quirks of the game. I don't love the instructions, which aren't intuitive, BUT once you learn the game, you realize how easy it is and then it's easy to teach it as well.It's a challenging game - something that always brings a new challenge no matter how often you play it. It can be frustrating, because how well you do depends on how well others are attacking or defending. That said, it can be incredibly fulfilling when you do well, because you managed to manipulate things right.This is best for older ages, and when you're wide awake ready to really play/work on a game.