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Nature can be rough. Animals adapt, species change, and sometimes things just disappear because they were not strong enough. Apex Carnivore takes that idea and turns it into a small head to head card game about evolution.
In this game you start with a shared ancestor and slowly evolve your species into something stronger. Maybe a bear-like hunter, maybe a fast cat predator, maybe something a bit more sneaky like a mustelid. The goal is simple. Reduce the other species to zero population before they do the same to you.
The twist is that a lot of things depend on dice rolls. You build your deck, improve your traits, and hope your species is a little better adapted than the one sitting across the table. Or at least lucky enough.
👥 1-2 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 20-30 minutes
📝 Designers: Fulvio Flamini, Hendrik Poulsen Nautrup & Lea M. Trenkwalder
🎨 Artwork: Alexander Rommel
🏢 Publisher: OneStone Studios (preview copy provided)
Check out the Gamefound campaign by clicking here
Gameplay Overview
Both players start with the same ancestor deck from the Miacidae family. From there you slowly evolve your species by gaining new traits. These traits can push your species towards three different families in the game: Felidae, Ursidae, and Mustelidae.
Each player tracks their population with a twenty sided die from 0 to 20. When your population reaches zero, your species goes extinct and the other player wins.
Every trait card represents something your species can do. Hunting behaviour, survival skills, defensive adaptations. Each card has a difficulty number you need to beat with a die roll to activate it. Some cards also give initiative. That matters because the player with the highest initiative acts first in the round.
The game is played in rounds with a clear structure. Both players draw five cards and place them face up in front of them. These are the traits your species currently has available.
Then initiative is counted. Whoever has the most initiative icons becomes the first player.
During the activation phase, the first player tries to activate their cards one by one by rolling a twenty sided die. If the result plus modifiers meets the difficulty value, the card activates. If it fails, the card is turned sideways and stays inactive for the rest of the round. After that, the second player does the same with their cards.
Next comes the survival phase. The first player adds up the attack values from their activated cards and deals damage. The defending player subtracts their defence. Any remaining damage lowers the opponent’s population.
If the defending species reaches zero, the game ends immediately. That means the second player might not even get the chance to attack back. A little brutal, but I guess nature is not exactly known for being fair.
After combat, players move to the evolution phase. Starting with the first player, players alternate attempts until each of them successfully performs one action. Usually this means trying to buy a new trait from the shared pool by passing another skill check.
If the roll succeeds, the card goes into your discard pile and will eventually enter your deck. If it fails, the card stays in the pool and you cannot try to buy it again that round.
You can also remove a card from the pool entirely. This action succeeds automatically. In other words, if there is a card your opponent clearly wants, you can simply remove it from the game. Not very friendly, but effective.
Whenever the pool has fewer than five cards, new ones are revealed from the trait deck.
There is also an interesting rule about reshuffling. When your deck runs out and you need to draw again, you must permanently remove one card from your discard pile before reshuffling the rest. Over time your deck slowly improves because weaker traits disappear.
Then all played cards go to the discard pile and a new round begins.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The game comes in a fairly compact box. Inside it, you mostly find cards and four twenty sided dice. Two green dice track life points and two white dice are used for skill checks.
The artwork focuses on animals and their behaviour. You see predators hunting, animals moving through forests or rivers, or family groups interacting. The illustrations are colourful and detailed without becoming too busy.
I liked that many cards show actual behaviours instead of just animals posing. Things like pack hunting or den building make the connection between theme and mechanics quite clear.
The card layout is also easy to read. The difficulty number, effects, power and defence values are easy to find, and the icons help identify the different carnivore families.
There is also a reference card that shows the round structure, which honestly helps a lot during the first games.
Nothing about the components feels extravagant, but everything does its job. And sometimes that is exactly what a small card game needs.
Our Experience
The overall structure of the game is quite easy to learn. Draw five cards, roll to activate them, resolve combat, try to evolve, and repeat. After a round or two everyone at the table understood what was happening.
Games also move quickly. Most of our plays lasted somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes. That means you can easily play multiple games in one evening.
One thing that stands out immediately is that you do not choose which cards to play. You draw five cards and all of them are played automatically.
I guess this keeps the game fast. There is almost no downtime and turns move quickly. But it also means you sometimes feel a bit at the mercy of your deck. You cannot save a good card for the perfect moment.
The dice rolls are another big factor. Many things in the game depend on skill checks. Activating traits, buying new cards, and sometimes triggering effects that make later rolls easier. When the dice cooperate, everything works nicely. When they do not, things can slow down quickly.
We had rounds where one player simply failed several activations in a row. That can hurt, especially if the opponent is having a good round at the same time.
On the other hand, modifiers from active cards apply to several checks in the round, so once you start stacking bonuses the system becomes more reliable.
Initiative also turned out to be more important than we expected. Because the first player attacks first, some games ended quite suddenly. If the defender drops to zero population, the game ends before the counterattack happens.
I mean, it fits the theme of survival. But it can also feel a little abrupt.
The pruning rule stood out to us during our games. Every time your deck cycles, one card disappears permanently. At first I thought it was just a small detail, but over time it noticeably improves the quality of your deck.
The shared trait pool also creates interaction between players. You are not just building your own species. Sometimes you are also removing cards so your opponent cannot get them.
I will admit that this can feel a bit mean at times. But it does keep players watching each other’s plans.
Our Thoughts
For us, Apex Carnivore sits somewhere between a deckbuilder and a tactical dice game.
The deckbuilding part is clear. You add new traits, remove weaker ones, and slowly shape your species into something more effective.
But the dice remain a strong influence throughout the game. That means long term planning sometimes takes a back seat to reacting to what happens in the current round.
The evolutionary theme works well though. The idea that weaker traits disappear over time fits nicely with the pruning rule, and the different carnivore families give the deckbuilding some direction.
At the same time, the game stays fairly simple. This is not a large engine building deckbuilder with complicated combos. It is a small duelling game that focuses on quick rounds and tactical decisions.
For us it worked best when we approached it with that mindset. A quick evolutionary duel rather than a deep strategy puzzle.
And honestly, watching two species roll dice to see if they can hunt properly is strangely entertaining.
Although I suppose in real nature the animals probably do not use a twenty sided die.
At least I hope not.
👉 If you’re interested, the game launches on Gamefound on March 17.
📝 We received a prototype copy of Apex Carnivore from OneStone Studios.
