Nature is the new modular board game published by North Star Games, where players evolve species to outcompete their opponents and eat the most food. It’s a redesign of the 2014 game Evolution by the same designer, Dominic Crapuchettes, that appears to be trying to simplify the mechanics and make it more modular to allow them to sell a series of themed expansions alongside it. The box and card art is undeniably gorgeous thanks to the work of Catherine Hamilton (who also worked on Evolution), and the packaging is all recycled and plastic-free to stay in line with the game’s environmental messaging, but is Nature nothing but a dumbed-down, greenwashed, cash grab or is it an eco-conscious and worthy successor to an already well designed game?
Well, a few days ago, after having Nature sat on my shelf for several weeks, I finally kidnapped some friends to try the game out for myself and work out the answer. The rules are almost identical to Evolution with only a few tweaks, such that you can entirely get the hang of the rules of one after a single game if you’re already familiar with the other. The basic gameplay loop of both consists of adding traits to your species, then competing to gather the most food either by foraging or hunting other species. Despite going in with fairly low expectations and expecting to be bored by a simpler version of a game I already owned, I can confidently say after having played only once that Nature is a much better game. I don’t mean to throw any shade against Evolution as it’s one of my favourite games especially for non-gamers, but from what I’ve seen Nature is a strict improvement. (In case you’ve not played Evolution, here’s a nice review of it that gives a pretty good idea of what it’s like).
Nature is the new modular board game published by North Star Games, where players evolve species to outcompete their opponents and eat the most food. It’s a redesign of the 2014 game Evolution by the same designer, Dominic Crapuchettes, that appears to be trying to simplify the mechanics and make it more modular to allow them to sell a series of themed expansions alongside it. The box and card art is undeniably gorgeous thanks to the work of Catherine Hamilton (who also worked on Evolution), and the packaging is all recycled and plastic-free to stay in line with the game’s environmental messaging, but is Nature nothing but a dumbed-down, greenwashed, cash grab or is it an eco-conscious and worthy successor to an already well designed game?
Well, a few days ago, after having Nature sat on my shelf for several weeks, I finally kidnapped some friends to try the game out for myself and work out the answer. The rules are almost identical to Evolution with only a few tweaks, such that you can entirely get the hang of the rules of one after a single game if you’re already familiar with the other. The basic gameplay loop of both consists of adding traits to your species, then competing to gather the most food either by foraging or hunting other species. Despite going in with fairly low expectations and expecting to be bored by a simpler version of a game I already owned, I can confidently say after having played only once that Nature is a much better game. I don’t mean to throw any shade against Evolution as it’s one of my favourite games especially for non-gamers, but from what I’ve seen Nature is a strict improvement. (In case you’ve not played Evolution, here’s a nice review of it that gives a pretty good idea of what it’s like).
Improvements:
● Each player gains 1 new species each round so that everyone is at a more even level
● Making mistakes is less punishing as lost members of your species get added on to your next species, so you only lose food (i.e. points) that round rather than being permanently set behind
● There is no maximum number of species so you can make massive herds to your heart’s content
● Most traits contribute to either the attack or defence of an animal rather than everything being based almost exclusively around size
● You can stack multiples of the same trait to create crazy specialised species
● Herbivores eat food equal to their size big animals actually have a benefit aside from being harder to be predated upon
● Players can opt in to making a hunter at any time so you don’t have to rely on luck to draw a specific predator card
● The layout of text on cards is much more formulaic making it much easier to interpret and reducing ambiguities
● Each card feels more unique and impactful to your species design
● The box contains dedicated card containers for all the parts allowing everything to be easily packed away after each gaming session and just as effortlessly set up ready for the next one
● The base game is almost £20 cheaper at RRP
● There are a variety of different expansions which each describe the play style they encourage so you can get the ones that best fit your table
● Each expansion adds its own deck so you can choose which additions to opt into during a game and can be entirely mixed and matched without feeling like they cut off any options for yourself by choosing to start with one over another
● There is a single player variant for those times when you really need to play a board game but none of your friends are free
There are a few caveats, however, but while I’ll share them here I honestly don’t believe any of them are significant enough to counter the good aspects.
Caveats:
● The base game contains much fewer cards so there’s less replayability if you don’t get any expansions
● The fun wooden dinosaur first player marker is replaced with a slightly less fun wooden snow leopard marker
● The art direction has moved away from fantastical creatures and towards real life animals (although this may be an improvement depending on your tastes)
● The amount of food that will be added each turn is pre-set at the games start so you’ll likely know from the very beginning of the game if you’re going to have lots, just enough, or very little food, rather than being able to manipulate it to your own benefit each round
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
80%
