Adapt your species to the changing ecosystem to ensure your survival!
What Is Nature?
Nature is a game for 1 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 30–45 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $39 for a copy of the core game, or $109 for the big box that includes the first 5 modules (which is the version I’m reviewing here). There are also options for the digital edition, both core and “big box” versions. Nature is based on the Evolution series, but is a stand-alone, separate game with some significant changes. It is expandable to 6 players (the Big Box editions will allow for 6 players), and also includes optional modules that you can mix and match to create different ecosystems to play in.
Nature was designed by Dominic Crapuchettes and published by North Star Games. The illustrations in the core game are by Catherine Hamilton. Other modules were illustrated by Lauren Helton (Flight), Vincent Dutrait (Jurassic and Rainforest), Danea Fidler (Arctic Tundra), and Atha Kanaani (Natural Disasters).
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Nature Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. My copy included five modules: Flight, Jurassic, Rainforest, Arctic Tundra, and Natural Disasters, so my photos will include components from the whole set. There have been some changes to some of the components from the prototype to what’s shown on the Kickstarter page.
Here’s what comes in the core game:
- Watering Hole board
- 88 Nature cards
- 8 Predatory cards
- Snow Leopard First Player marker
- 4 Food bags
- 80 Plant tokens
- 80 Meat tokens
- 28 10-value Plant/Meat tokens
- 20 Size dials
- 96 Population tokens
- 4 Player Aids
Each module has its own set of components, as well as a smaller rule sheet:
- Jurassic
- 40 Jurassic cards
- 24 Jurassic Size dials
- Thagomizer die
- 4 Player Aids
- Flight
- 40 Flight cards
- 24 Flight Size cards
- Faraway Place tile
- 4 Player Aids
- Rainforest
- 40 Rainforest cards
- Rainforest Watering Hole board
- 15 Poison Resistance tokens
- 30 Fruit tokens
- 4 Player Aids
- Arctic Tundra
- 40 Arctic Tundra cards
- Tundra Watering Hole board
- Cold Damage Die
- 4 Player Aids
- Natural Disasters
- 40 Natural Disaster cards
- 10 Comet tokens
The watering hole board is where you’ll place plant food each round for animals to forage—it’s just a simple board with a lovely illustration on it. For the Arctic Tundra and Rainforest modules, there are alternate watering hole boards—not necessary for gameplay, but a nice touch to help with the setting.
The Evolution games included big chunky meeples as first player markers, and Nature continues that tradition with this oversized snow leopard meeple.
[Update: The prototype used these wooden size tokens, but it looks like the finished game will use dials instead, with additional dials for the bigger sizes in Jurassic, and cards to indicate flying species in the Flight module—which also means fewer plastic trays for all of those size tokens.]
To indicate the size of your species, there are oval wooden tokens: each one is double-sided, with a red side indicating your species is predatory, and there’s a large number paired with an illustration that gives you a sense of the creature’s size. The Flight module includes blue size tokens for flying species, and the Jurassic module includes extra-large tokens for the bigger sizes. When your species grow in size, you stack the new size token on top of the old one—for growing to size 5, you return the four smaller tokens and replace it with the extra-thick size 5 token, and later 6 through 8 get stacked on top of that. The stacked tokens make it easier to see at a glance how big species are from across the table.
As you can see from the top photo, the game includes several plastic trays with lids—these are used both to store components and also to make set up faster: you can just set out the necessary trays and remove the lids, and a lot of the setup is ready.
The box insert is also pretty well-designed, with embossed titles for each section so you know where everything goes, and I noted that the wells for the cards are deep enough to allow for sleeving. There’s a lid for this section as well that holds a few of the components, and then a cardboard divider with the smaller trays resting on top of it. It includes a diagram of how to arrange the trays, too, so there’s no confusion about how to put everything away.
How to Play Nature
You can download a copy of the rulebooks here. You can also try it for free on Tabletop Simulator.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to score the most points by eating food over the course of the game, as well as keeping species alive until the end of the game.
Setup
Each game may include up to two modules. I’ll explain the base game first and then give an overview of the different modules.
Set out the watering hole along with the trays for the food tokens, population tokens, and size tokens. Shuffle the Nature cards to form a deck. Set the Predatory cards nearby.
Draw a card from the Nature deck and tuck it under the watering hole so the green number is visible. This is the amount of plant food per player that will be added at the beginning of each round.
Give each player a food bag, and give the first player marker to the person who most recently saw a wild animal.
Gameplay
Each round includes a Preparation Phase, an Adapting Phase, and a Feeding Phase (followed by cleanup for the next round).
Preparation: Add food to the watering hole based on the tucked card. Every player draws 5 cards from the deck. Then, every player gets a new species: take a size 1 token and 1 population token, and place them near each other in your own playing area. The size token starts on the herbivore side.
In later rounds, players who have lost population in the previous round will add that lost population to their new species. In addition, if any size tokens were lost because a species went extinct, the player will add that many size tokens to their new species as well.
Adapting: This is where you get to evolve your species. Each card may be played in four different ways:
- Discard a card to add a population token to a species.
- Discard a card to add a size token to a species.
- Play a card face-down next to one of your species to add it as a trait. (Limit 3 cards per species.)
- Save the card to discard for food later.
As a free action, you may take a Predatory card from the supply and add it to a species, flipping the size token over to indicate that the species is now a predator and must hunt instead of foraging. You may also remove traits from your species and discard them.
Players adapt their species in turn order, with one player completing all of their adaptations before the next player begins. (There is also a quick play variant, which I prefer, where everyone adapts their species simultaneously.)
Once everyone is done adapting, everyone reveals the traits on their species.
Feeding: It’s time to eat! In turn order, each player chooses one of their species to Forage (from the watering hole) or Hunt (another species). Predators may not forage, and non-predators may not hunt. Each population may eat 1 food, which is placed on the population token to indicate that it is fed. If you have any population tokens that aren’t fed, then they’re hungry.
When you Forage, you take plant food from the watering hole equal to that species’ foraging value, which is all of the leaf icons—each species has foraging equal to its size, but many of the traits also have additional leaf icons. You may only take as much plant food as is available in the watering hole.
If you have a predator, then it must Hunt. Choose any other species (including your own!). Your hunt value is indicated by the paw icons—the base hunt value is the size, but trait cards can increase this. Compare this to your prey’s defend value, which is the turtle shell icons—the base defend value is the size, and some traits add more.
You also need to make sure that you can overcome any defensive traits. For instance, of the prey has “Fast,” then you must have at least the same number of “Fast” traits to catch it.
If the hunt is successful, the prey loses 1 population, flipping the token over and setting it near their food bag. (Any food that was on the population is discarded to the supply.) The predator takes meat food from the supply equal to the prey’s size and places them on the population tokens.
During the Feeding Phase, you may discard cards from your hand to add plant food to the watering hole equal to the green number at the bottom corner.
If you can’t Forage or Hunt with any of your hungry species on your turn, then one population dies of starvation—flip the token over and place it next to your food bag. If you lose your last population token for a species, that species goes extinct. Put the size token near your food bag, and take any trait cards back into your hand (except for the Predatory card, which is returned to the supply).
If all of your population are fed, then you are done feeding and will pass for the rest of the Feeding Phase. Once everyone is fed, the Feeding Phase ends.
Take all of the food tokens from your population tokens and place them into your food bag. Pass the first player marker to the left and start a new round. (Remember: during the Preparation Phase, the size tokens and population tokens near your food bag are added to your new species.)
Game End
The number of rounds depends on how many modules are included: 4 for the core game, and one more round for each module (up to 6 rounds).
At the end of the game, score 1 point for each food you’ve collected, and 2 points for each species that is still alive. The highest score wins, with ties going to the most traits on their surviving species.
Adding Modules
To add modules, you’ll just include their components during setup. Each module’s cards are shuffled independently, so you will just have multiple decks of cards; some of the modules have additional tokens or components. Note that you may only use one biome module at a time, so you cannot combine Arctic Tundra and Rainforest.
When drawing cards during Preparation, you still draw 5 cards, but you may choose which decks to draw cards from each round.
Jurassic
The Jurassic module is all about size: you include the larger size tokens during setup, and make sure to set the Thagomizer die nearby.
Whenever a species gains size during Adapting, it gains a minimum of 2 size. In addition, the maximum size of all species is doubled. (Usually flying species may only get to size 2, but when combined with Jurassic they can go to size 4.)
The Thagomizer die, which has values from 0 to 6, is rolled when a predator Hunts a species that has the Thagomizer trait—it loses population equal to the number rolled.
Flight
Flight adds the Faraway Place tile and the blue size tokens. Each round, add 1 population token per player to the Faraway Place, with a meat food on top of each one.
When taking your new species during Preparation, you may choose a flying species instead of a land species—simply take the blue size token instead. Flying species may only be hunted by other flying species, and have a maximum size of 2 (unless using the Jurassic module). Flying species are not worth any points at the end of the game.
Flying species have a new option during the Feeding phase: instead of Forage or Hunt, your flying species may also Migrate. Move the size token to the Faraway Place; any unfed population tokens starve and are placed next to your food bag. If none of your population starved, then the migrating species raised a family! Take one of the fed population tokens from the Faraway Place (if any are left) and add it to this species.
Species that have migrated to the Faraway Place are out of play for the rest of the Feeding Phase: they cannot take any more actions, but they cannot be hunted, and none of their traits will trigger. After the Feeding Phase is over, your migrated species return to you.
Arctic Tundra
The tundra is cold and food is scarce! During setup, use a card with a value “1” for the watering hole.
During Adapting, it costs 2 cards instead of 1 to increase your population. Whenever you discard a card to add food to the watering hole, it only adds 1 food regardless of the card value.
At the end of the Feeding Phase, you must check to see if you lose population due to cold: in the prototype, the default was that a species loses 4 population, and it’s reduced by the amount of cold protection it has. Each size provides 1 cold protection, and many of the traits have snowflake icons that provide cold protection as well. I see on the Kickstarter page that the finished game will include a Cold Damage die, so the damage each round may be variable.
Rainforest
The rainforest has additional sources of food, but can also be surprising. Include the fruit tokens and the poison resistance tokens in setup.
Anytime a species would gain only 1 population, gain 2 instead. However, population lost from starving or being hunted is discarded and isn’t added to your species the next round.
Traits played on your species may be left face-down, and only revealed when you decide to use their effects. If a species attempts to Hunt but then a trait is revealed that nullifies the attempt, then the hunter will lose 1 population for starvation.
One of the new traits is Climbing—not only does it prevent predators from hunting it unless they also have climbing, these species may also eat fruit once per round as a Forage action, and fruit is worth 2 points at the end of the game.
The Rainforest module also adds a Poison trait. If a predator attacks a species with Poison, it will lose 4 population and gain a Poison Resistance token. Each Poison Resistance token reduces the population loss by 1.
Natural Disasters
The Natural Disaster cards are oversized cards and will cause a variety of effects when they come into play. During setup, include the comet tokens, and reveal one card during setup.
Most disaster cards have a comet icon with a number on it—place that many comet tokens on it, indicating how many rounds this effect will last. Some cards have a lightning bolt effect, which triggers once immediately.
At the end of each round, remove one comet token from each disaster card in play. If any cards no longer have comet tokens, discard them. Then, reveal one new disaster card.
Why You Should Play Nature
I’ve been a fan of the Evolution games for a long time, and it seems appropriate that they continue to evolve. After a couple of expansions—Flight and Climate—the series took a dive into the Oceans (for which I worked on the rulebook). I’ve always loved the way that the games let you build different species, trying to find the best way to grow their populations and keep them fed. Oceans changed up the gameplay, removing the separate preparation and feeding phases in favor of an ever-moving adapt-and-feed player turn, but Nature has returned to something a bit closer to the original.
This latest incarnation allows the game itself to take on different traits based on the type of experience your gaming group is looking for each time you play by using the various modules. Want to bring back giant lizards? Throw in the Jurassic module. Like to set traps for your rivals? Give the Rainforest module a shot. Love playing in hard mode? Maybe mix the Arctic Tundra with the Natural Disasters to create an epic struggle for survival!
Nature does a good job of showing the way different traits interact with each other: there isn’t a simple solution where one trait or combination is always best—it depends on the entire ecosystem. If you have a lot of species that have developed traits for foraging but they’re slow and happy, then it may be a prime time to evolve some predators, particularly if the food at the watering hole is getting scarce. But if there are a lot of predators out, sometimes some herbivores can take advantage of the fact that they’ll be hunting each other, and sneak over to the watering hole when competition isn’t so fierce.
If you’re already familiar with Evolution, you’ll recognize some of the various traits in Nature, but it’s also interesting to see how some of them have been spun off into different modules. Pack Hunting shows up in Jurassic, for instance, and Climbing has been tweaked and put into Rainforest. Flight is no longer its own trait card, but instead is indicated by the size token. The cold protection seen in Evolution: Climate has made its way in part to the Arctic Tundra module. And several of the modules have their own ways of becoming predators with specific abilities in addition to the basic Predatory card.
The original Evolution had 17 different traits (increased to 23 in Evolution: Climate), and you just had one big deck of all of the available traits. It’s a lot of traits to keep track of if you’re new to the game, and when you draw cards there’s no telling what you’ll get, so you just try to make the most of what you have. Oceans mixed this up: there were only 12 basic traits to learn, and at the beginning of the game players may only play from those, and then after the Cambrian Explosion is triggered, they gain access to the Deep cards, a deck of about 90 totally unique traits. So Oceans significantly increased the total number of traits in total, but in any given game you would only see a fraction of the cards from the Deep (and since they cost points to play, you were limited in the number that you would use).
Nature does something kind of in between: the core game has only 8 traits (plus Predatory), so that makes the initial learning curve a little smoother as you figure out how these traits interact with each other. Each of the other modules (aside from Natural Disasters) adds only 5 trait cards, so individually they’re also not too difficult to include one at a time. But since the decks are kept separate, you have a little more control over which traits you end up with. If you’re really interested in Pack Hunting, you don’t have to draw from a deck of 17 different traits and hope you get lucky—instead, you can draw more cards from the Jurassic deck and you’re more likely to find it.
So far I’ve gotten to play at least once with each module (but I haven’t tried every combination). I really enjoyed the surprise traits in the Rainforest: becoming poisonous is extremely powerful because it takes so much population loss to gain enough poison resistance, but then it means that you can put any Rainforest trait card face-down, and potential hunters will have to decide if it’s worth the risk. And, of course, Jurassic is fun because who doesn’t want to turn their species into dinosaurs? (Gotta love that they included the “Thagomizer” reference, too!) Evolution: Flight was always a bit of a challenge—many of my players just had a hard time keeping their birds alive—but the Flight module is a little less punishing and offers some interesting trade-offs for the players.
North Star Games has big ambitions for Nature: after this initial launch, they hope to release 1 or 2 new modules a year for the next decade, with Climate and Disease modules slated for 2026. Each new module will increase the possible combinations.
Nature definitely takes a lot of its DNA from Evolution, so as it currently stands I’m not sure if fans of the older game will feel like replacing it or adding a game that is fairly similar. I’m not quite ready to trade in my copy of Evolution: Climate but I definitely have enjoyed Nature. But if North Star’s plans come to fruition, I can see a lot of potential for Nature to edge out Evolution for me—this system has a lot more flexibility to introduce new traits without overloading the game, and the mix-and-match nature can keep it fresh, giving you new ways to play even with the older cards.
If you’ve been a fan of the Evolution series, it’s definitely worth checking out! And if you haven’t, I think this will be a great place to start.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Nature Kickstarter page!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
