Evolution Board Game Ideas

Do you know Primordial Soup?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursuppe

Hello! I have created a game called EVOLUTION EARTH. It´s not published yet, but it really consist all of the stages from single celled creatures all the way to the mammals and birds. It´s a kind of an wargame where you use different kind of natural catastrophes, climate changes, ice-ages etc. (about 45) different kind of things that can happen. I also have drifting continents in the game so it´s very dynamic and every game is totally different (yet somehow similar too).
The continents have different kind of climates in them, so the game can look very deserty or jungley or everything between that (5 different climates per continent; 7 of them.)

It´s a very strategic and tactical game where you try to acquire land and/or sea areas and the winner is based upon area control in the end. Species combine their forces in their competition against opponents species and the dynamic thing about this is that same species can be both strong or weak depending whom with they are having competition about natural resources. Also very strong species tend to be weak e.g when climate change occurs (they are too specialized in that kind of climate). Game can also be won by acquiring special things like "having most of reptiles" and "filling one continent with them and things similar like that. Those cards are called "herocards" or something like that. The game has not been translated to english yet. So far only Finnish.

The game "money" is natural resources by which you can buy the effects in the cards e.g asteroid attack costs 15 natural resource tokens.

This game concept took me about ten years to do including all the game graphics (continents, cards, animal tokens (thousands of them), game board and species board). So the game is totally finnished and only needs a translation any more. I´ve been playing and making it better for many years now and it really is now a fun game to play even though you could think that it is a heavy theme. Even though the theme is so large (millions of years of evolution, natural disasters, competition of species etc.) the game is fairly easy to play (it has been played by children who loved it.) The game is very tactical, so one must be very careful when to play some cards and when not to. Also the mechanic which controls who plays first, who next and so on is solely based upon the playing of the cards. Never seen in any other game such a mechanic which I invented last year. I am very proud of it. It makes the game even more strategic!

I wish you all the best but wanted to tell that this concept has been done (at least here in Finland by me). Maybe your concept could be about evolution as well but be emphasized differently. I am sure there are lot of different aspects one could think of.

Btw. If some publisher got interest about this I would gladly tell more. My email is tomi71@gmail.com

I have a plan to show this game (prototype) in Essen 2009 if I can get the money to travel and so on. Hope to see you all there.

edit: more information: the game is for ages 11 up and 2-4 players. It takes about 2 hours to play (sometimes less). With 4 players it can take about 2-3 hours, which is not too much for a big concept like this.

In 2005, my company, Platypus Games, released Evolution: The Game That Evolves As You Play. This game really had little to do with the actual process of Darwin's Evolution (although that is the backdrop of the game), but rather it is more of a family/party game that has 18 different mind and performance challenges that change (EVOLVE) as the player moves around the board. Ultimately, once the teams or tribes reach the end of the game they have to MUTATE into a SUPER HUMAN and prove their super human abilities by either reading someone's mind or by predicting the future. The challenge cards tell players how to do it...so no telepathy needed! :-)

So, yes, not really the same game that you are talking about creating...but certainly the same backdrop. Ultimately, I think the problem with any kind of games based on ACTUAL Evolution is that it is really a process that takes millions of years to happen...so for armies of creatures to be battling and evolving while they fight doesn't really fit the concept. I would suggest taking that idea though and applying it to something that CAN evolve and mutate quickly (like a virus) and having your armies inflicted with different viruses that could infect your creatures and cause them to have various reactions to a number of circumstances.

Good luck!

Karl Archer

Thank you very much for your kind words. There was many moments that I thought that I quit doing the game but since I had made a promise to do it. I really had no choice. I am glad it happened that way. I will try to publish it as long as I breathe so that´s exactly the same thing again. Never quit and give up is kinda like somekind of motto here.

Let´s never give up! Sometimes one feels that there is no solution to some problem in game development but when given a lot of thought and time it will solve it self. I promise :)

IIRC, a species' evolution strategy isn't just relying on mutation, but the right amount of mutation based on how quickly the environment changes. Too little mutation and the species won't adapt to the environment, too much and it will be difficult to establish a population (or something -- I can't remember the real reason too much mutation is bad). I don't know if many evolution-based games take the rate of mutation, as it relates to how quickly then environment changes, into account.

Just a thought.

I made a picture about people playing Evolution Earth. So this gives a little insight (picture) what the game looks like. Those continents btw are movable and player can move them when he/she plays a "continent" card. So it is a very strategic to consider how you will put the continents into the world so that your species can expand their niches (territories) and compete the areas for themselves.

First the card raises one continent when played. e.g player can raise Africa from ocean.

There are protocontinents before the big ones appear.

I am planning to put more images in a nearby future.

Please comment how you like it.

oh, almost forget the link:
http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=evoluutiopelihuoneds2.jpg

edit:

I put another one too. It has only a game board with tiles and continents and playing cards. It however doesn´t show the resourcetiles or dices (colordices and 1 normal dice).

http://img93.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pelilauta2009imageshackui2.jpg

This is about a play situation where all 7 continents have risen from sea on top of the protocontinents. There has not yet been any continental drift, so the Pangaea has formed. There are four player colours: red, green, yellow and blue. And those speciestablets have some species on them which are also four colored. The tablet shows who "owns" the species. E.g in Africa there are only green players species (2 speciestablets).

In North-American continent (part of pangaea) there are 2 red players´speciestablets and 1 blue players speciestablet.

The continents are in this example as follows: North-America and South-America are rainforests (jungles). Africa is savannah. Eurasia is tundracontinent now (maybe some player has played an iceage there before - it turns the climate into tundra after the devastation). Antarctica is desert. India is rainforest. Australia is Savannah. In the left top corner you can also see that the sea is arctic over there. Some player has played "Sea stream - arctic" card there. (The english names have not been decided yet.)

Hope you enjoyed my little presentation here. I wish to put some more images in future if you like.

edit: uploaded the gamebox too

http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gameboxofevolutionearthmk4.jpg

Thank you! Yes, the continents are their own game pieces and at first they rise to their original positions and after that they can be moved the way player wants to. All this happens by playing the card "continent".

I will soon put an image of the game board without continents so you can have a better picture how the continents are put into the board.

edit:
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/8646/pelilauta2009miniversiohy8.jpg

so there you go. Only game board without continents and species. Those greenish areas are protocontinents which can hold only one speciestile. When continent arises it can hold much more speciestiles e.g Eurasia can hold up to six while South-America can hold 2.

edit 2: There are 12 sea areas which each one can hold up to 3 speciestiles (speciestablets might be a better word for it.)

Thought it would be wiser to delete all of my images since publishers maybe want to keep things secret ? And no more comments from here so thanks everybody.

I am glad you did tomi. This forum also encourages openness.

I think sometimes designers are restricted by the publishers from sharing because they demand secrecy (see Dralius' post).

if you have to keep it secret you might find some people willing to discuss through pm. I would not have even had a game for my board if it wasn't for a few good people from this forum helping me out.

Who hasn't designed an Evolution game at some stage? It's one of th great challenges of game design.

Mine is simply called EVOLUTION, and like Tomi's, it is a strategy/wargame with continental drift - though my drift is historical rather than player-driven (a nice idea that, Tomi). I use Risk counters for pieces and playing cards as the game-driver.

Players strive to rise up the Genus Table which gives them a competitive advantage in the territorial wargame that develops. But here's the kicker: each player can also evolve into an ecological niche. And it's not the carnivorees that the herbivores need to look out for - it's the other herbivores who are competing for the same food!

The game works very well, but it's far too long for today's market (about 8 hours for a full game). And while the drifting continents are really neat, they would make the production costs spiral through the roof.

So this is just one for me and my wargaming friends - until I become uber-famous of course, and Fantasy Flight come knocking at my door. A man can dream, can't he?

FYI, I do remember once reading a (not very complimetary) review of a drifting continents game on BoardGameGeek a couple of years ago, though i'm afraid I can't remember what it was called.

M<