Wouter & Ymke 
The beautiful complexity of life on Earth has always astounded us. At the heart of this diversity lies the theory of evolution, wherein random mutations give rise to new traits in plants and animals. These new traits, when beneficial, lead to successful propagation, expansion of habitats, and efficient self-defense. Evolution: New World, an extended and updated version of Evolution: The Origin of Species, brings this captivating process right onto your gaming table.
👥 2-4 players, ages 12+
🕰 Playing time: 30-60 minutes
📝 Designers: Dmitry Knorre & Sergey Machin
🎨 Artwork: Maria Efremova & Alexandra Karenskaya
🏢 Publisher: CrowD Games
https://crowdgames.us/
In Evolution: New World, your task is to create animals and equip them with traits necessary for survival in an ever-changing environment. Over six epochs, your animals will evolve, gather food, and survive against predators or perish if poorly adapted. At the end of the game, victory points are awarded for your surviving animals and their traits. The player with the most points is crowned the winner.
⏳ The game lasts six epochs, corresponding to the six cards in the Area stack. Every epoch consists of four phases: Development, Areas, Feeding, and Extinction.
🏗️ In the Development phase, players create new animals or add traits to existing ones by playing Evolution cards from their hand. Each turn, you place an Evolution card on the table, either face up to add a trait to an existing animal or face down to create a new animal. If you choose not to or cannot play an Evolution card, you must pass, forfeiting all your remaining turns until the end of the Development phase.
🗺️ During the Areas phase, a new Area card is placed, and food and shelter tokens are added to all face-up Area cards, indicating the resources available to the animals during that epoch.
🍴 The Feeding phase sees your animals trying to fulfill their food requirements. Animals can take food from the areas, or predators can attack other animals. Any animal that does not get enough food will die in the Extinction phase.
☠️ In the Extinction phase, animals that couldn’t meet their food requirements die, and those that could survive move on to the next epoch. If there are animals with specific traits that activate at the beginning of the Extinction phase, these traits are resolved first. The process continues with renewal, card drawing, and finally, the transfer of the first player token to the next player.
🎯 Key to your success is understanding how to use traits effectively. Each Evolution card provides two traits: a main trait and a short trait. While their descriptions may differ, from a gameplay perspective, both are equally important. The game challenges you to think strategically about how and when to assign these traits to your animals.
🍖 The role of predators in the game cannot be overlooked. Any animal with the carnivorous trait becomes a predator and can take food from areas or attack other animals for food. However, the predator can only attack once per Feeding phase, and it must choose its target carefully, as some animals possess protective traits.
🦎 After six epochs, the game ends, and it’s time for final scoring. Each surviving animal is worth three victory points, and each trait they possess is worth one victory point. There are also additional points available for traits that increase an animal’s food requirements. The player with the highest score emerges as the supreme architect of life in Evolution: New World!
In this latest game from the minds of Dmitry Knorre and Sergey Machin, players take a quick 45-minute trip into the intricacies of survival, beautifully brought to life by Maria Efremova and Alexandra Karenskaya’s stunning artwork. Like taking a crash course in nature’s rulebook, this game simulates the primal struggle for survival. It’s a breeze to understand and offers clear-cut gameplay that won’t have you wrestling with complicated instructions. The setup is quick, letting you dive straight into the action.
🔬 At the core of your survival strategy are Evolution cards. Deploy them to create new species or add unique traits to your existing animals, a strategic decision that could mean life or death for your creatures. With many traits, the player aids become a valuable companion, especially for beginners or when introducing the game to new players.
🍖 It’s not all about evolution, though. Feeding is crucial to survival. Your final score is determined by the animals that survive through the sixth epoch, so feeding them well is a must. A word of caution: you can play spoilsport by giving negative traits to opponents’ animals, but some might not enjoy this aspect. It’s always wise to flag the ‘take-that’ element of the game beforehand.
Tactics come into play during the feeding phase, where predators can feast on opponents’ animals. But remember, survival is critical, so arm your animals with protective traits like camouflage or speed. Sometimes, sacrificing one of your weaker animals to protect a stronger one could be a game-changing move.
🦎 The game stands true to Darwin’s theory of evolution, perfectly capturing how nature and natural selection work. It’s about adaptation and survival, shaping the landscapes of the game with every decision you make.
💭 Overall, Evolution: New World offers an easy-to-grasp strategy experience. It challenges you to think, adapt, and persevere in a world that is in constant flux. The game also comes with a couple of variants that let you adjust the game length by changing the number of area cards, bring an element of randomness with the ‘Random Mutations’ variant, or brave environmental disasters in the ‘Cataclysm’ variant.
📝 And finally, a word of thanks to CrowD Games, who kindly provided us with a review copy of Evolution: New World.
