The NorthStar Games booth was dominated by their new rework of Evolution, Nature. It’s a streamlined version of the original game that can be mixed and matched with (five so far) expansions to add in more complexity and/or chaos. The base game is available but a digital version of the game will have an earlier release of expansions. It’s hoped to provide additional data for checking the balance of some of the later expansions. The digital version gets the full treatment of multiplayer, campaign modes, achievements, and lots of fun facts and photos. The MOCO Games booth was showing off their Sabobatage card game of cutthroat drink-making along with their newer titles. Danger Hugs is a sort of reverse slapjack where the matching animal determines the correct response action. Finally, there is Starleap where players play cards from (nearly) identical hands to race their frogs through space to get home first, hopefully picking up some bugs along the way. Upgrades to your frog-ship and asymmetric powers also play a part.

NorthStar Games

Nature

After a long development, the successor to Evolution is finally here. Once again, players are trying to shepherd their own sets of species through their life cycle, trying to gain a food advantage at the local watering hole while avoiding those meddlesome predators.

Each round, players gain a new species card onto the table. They can then use their hand of cards to upgrade any of their species in one of three ways. Any card can be discarded to increase the population of a species or increase its size (up to 4) – which governs how many pieces of food it can eat every time it feeds. Every card is also a trait card, which can be played onto a species (limit 3) to give it a unique attribute. Size and population are now tracked by handy dials rather than cubes. These are things like defensive cards, eating modifications, etc.. Unlike Evolution, there is no specific card for a carnivore (an animal that feeds off other species at the table.) Instead, a player can turn any one of their species into a carnivore (called hunter, here) as a free action.

“Being eaten” in Nature is also less harsh. When a species is “eaten”, they still lose 1 population, but the species owner gets a +1 to the population of their next played species card.

Overall, Nature has been designed to be a more streamlined version of Evolution. These include things like the removal of the carnivore trait as a card, giving every player a new species each turn, kinder “being eaten” rules, and only the more easily understood traits appearing in the base set. Further complexity in the game will come about with the regular release of additional trait sets that can be mixed and matched to give each game a different sort of “vibe”. These sets will be released over the next year or so.

The first five planned expansions are Flight, Jurassic, Natural Disasters, Tundra, and Amazon Rainforest. Fight, available now, add in the option to create flying species. These are harder to eat (flight- duh) due to traits like flocking, migrating to a “faraway place” where birds can nest in peace, as well as camouflage. Jurassic is, surprise, all about dinosaurs. You can go Apex Predator, hide as Elusive, or just have a big spiked tail. Body size maximum goes from size 4 to size 10, with all the changes making hunters (carnivores) slightly more useful than in the base game. Natural Disasters adds a bit of chaos to the mix which can be used as a minor leveling tool as everyone may be affected differently. One aspect touted about the set is that it provides a bit more of a thematic story background to the game due to the additional external elements that come into play. There’s also a deck of solo cards included in the Natural Disasters expansion. The Arctic Tundra expansion throws in the danger of freezing in the cold, giving players one more thing to worry about and ratcheting up the difficulty of surviving in general. Finally, the Amazon Rainforest adds in some hidden card play, allowing players to flex their deduction and bluffing skills. There will (probably) be more expansions in the future, with North Star Games polling their fans for their favorite thematic ideas.

Nature, and some of its specific expansions, allows for solo play through a set of opponent cards. If you’re not against electronic implementations, there will be a digital implementation of the game and its expansions, including all the bells and whistles one might expect for a sequel to the digital version of Evolution.

Out in September on Steam, mobile a few weeks later, the Nature app reuses some of the ideas from Evolution digital and mixes in new things from the new game. Players can play locally on the same computer/tablet or go online with realtime multiplayer matchmaking. Players can set up private games either as a realtime game, or play asynchronously.

Expansions can be shared, your friends can join and play with expansions that the host owns.

There will also be a campaign mode, giving players a series of special challenges – either new rules that change how the game plays or specific goals that need to be achieved. Each expansion module will have its own campaign to show off its unique aspects.

As with digital Evolution, the digital version of Nature will also include fun photos and facts about a wealth of creatures that may be encountered (or created) while playing the game.

Not all of the physical expansions have been printed and thus they will be appearing on the digital app first. The designers will be using the data farmed from online games as playtest data to double-check game balance before the finishing touches before the final printing of most of the expansions.

MOCO Games

Starleap

Take control of your team of three frogs and race back home through space, collecting bugs along the way. It’s a mix of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, if the two were set in space, gave players identical hands of reusable cards, special abilities, upgrade-granting planets on the board, optional expansions, …. Oh, so maybe not so much CandyLadders and more of its own thing.

Starleap is a game for two to five players (six with one of the expansions.) Everyone starts with the same hand of movement cards, an interrupt card (usable even in the middle of another player’s turn,) and a unique special card. The goal is to race through the board, collecting bugs along the way. After one player gets all three of their frogs across the finish line, the game ends. Players total up their bug points and add that to their points for finishing to determine the overall winner.

A turn consists of a player playing a card and resolving its action. Most are simply move actions and move a frog on the board. Importantly, one’s space frogs skip over spaces occupied by other space frog’s spaces. (You just skip occupied spots, but I couldn’t resist that sentence.) Each type of space will trigger something when landed on. Portals (there are three colors) have players roll a portal die to advance further, star spots give players special cards that have a 1 time special free action (although they can also be used face-down as a single bonus space.) Of course, there are the ever important asteroid spots which grant a player bugs – a possibly significant source of points. The planet spaces give a player one of five permanent upgrades, affecting every future turn. Each upgrade will improve a specific type of card.

Players will go through their hand of cards, losing access to played cards until they end a turn without any cards left. They then get to pick all their cards back up again. When a player gets all three frogs home, everyone scores points based on their relative positions. The player in last place actually loses points. Add placement scores to points for collected bugs and declare a winner.

Starleap has two expansions. The Ninja Expansion Pack gives a new character (bringing player count to 6) as well as a new card that allows players to roll a die to steal bugs. The Dino Eggspansion Pack places dino eggs randomly onto the board. These eggs provide a one time special ability when landed on.

Sabobatage

Sabobatage puts two to five players in the role of a boba tea parlour, attempting to make drinks for thirsty customers. Each drink requires three things: tea, flavors, and toppings. Players draw two cards, then play up to three. Cards can be one of the three ingredients or actions that affect the game situation. Actions include messing with other players (blocking or destroying unfinished drink cards, etc…)

Players stack drink cards together in front of them, up to 7 active ones at a time. Once played, ingredients can’t be rearranged. The first player to create a set number of drinks (4 or 5, depending on player count) wins the game.

There are two expansions. Tastea introduces employees with special powers, but they each take up one of those precious food preparation slots. Legends of Matcha brings the player count to seven, but the new cards that are introduced are curated to help keep the speed of the game high and keep things moving.

Danger Hugs

Danger Hugs is a slapstick backwards-version of slapjack. The first player to run out of cards is declared the winner. Players flip their cards in unison and then respond to what they see. If there is a pair of dangerous animal cards, players race to do the requisite protective action.

If there is a pair of cuddly animals showing, players race to “hug” them but slapping their hands down on the two cards. Again, the last player to do so must pick up the cards. Slapping (hugging) dangerous animals automatically gives a player the cards.

If there are two pairs showing, one dangerous and one cuddly, players race to grab the squishy heart. The winner of the heart gets to give half of their cards to another player of their choice. First to lose all their cards wins the game.