Usually, I’m not a huge fan of “Junior” games; rather, I prefer to modify rules so my kids can play the regular game. However, Evolution: The Beginning is one I found at the thrift store and just couldn’t pass up. It’s complex enough that my husband and I really enjoy it, too.
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Evolution: The Beginning is composed of a deck of cards, food tokens, the “watering hole,” and bags for the food tokens.
Evolution: The Beginning cards
The cards are quite ingenious. If they’re face down, they indicate population numbers. Face up, they show traits, and they can be used either way. Every turn, you take one card from the deck and place it face down in front of you, to indicate a new species. Then you draw three cards into your hand.
With these three cards, you can choose to create another species, add population cards to existing species, or modify your current species by adding traits. Traits can either help the species survive attacks from other species or help them attack other species.
The possible traits include long neck, scavenger, fat tissue, fertile, speed, burrowing, flight, nocturnal, defensive horns, and carnivore. Each species is limited to three traits.
Creating species
My family loves discussing what animals we could have created. One time my husband was amused by a burrowing, flighted carnivore he had, and I pointed out that he had a burrowing owl.
My personal favorite combination is a long neck, fat tissue, and fertile. It makes them easier to feed, allows them to eat more, and means they automatically add to their population. I like to pair a species like this with a carnivore, so my fertile species can feed my carnivore.
Competitiveness in Evolution: The Beginning
We noticed pretty quickly that this game has the distinct possibility of being very cutthroat. Our family doesn’t do well with these sorts of games, so we have a bit of a family rule that you don’t eat others’ populations unless you have permission. Sometimes those fertile species can get hard to feed, so sometimes it’s nice when a carnivore eats some. But otherwise, we tend to get attached to our creations, and it’s not worth the ill will for us to attack each others’ species. After all, we play board games to have fun and bond as a family.
Evolution is a passion of mine, so our family already has lots of conversations and discussions about how it happens. We love having a really fun game to help reinforce what we’re learning.
Other Evolution games
NorthStar Games has a whole line of Evolution games. In addition to The Beginning, there’s also the original Evolution game, Evolution: Climate Change, Evolution: Flight (expansion, and available only as a print-and-play), and Oceans. They also have digital versions available. You can try them out even if you don’t have room for physical games!