Game: Evolution Board Game
Genre: Board game, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam and mobile)
Developer | Publisher: North Star Digital Studios | North Star Games
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: EU €16,95 | USA $19.99 | UK £14.99
Release Date: December 10th, 2020
Review code used with many thanks to Stride PR
Evolution is a board game that’s all about survival. In fact, an award winning board game with more than 3 million players world wide. I have been one of them since I reviewed the mobile version of the game. Now, it’s landing on the Nintendo Switch as well!
All About Survival of the Most Adaptive
A quote that is often contributed to Charles Darwin is “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change” And that is exactly the logic that Evolution is based on.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Field Intern and go on a safari into the wild. There is no storyline, playing campaign in local mode brings you right to the heart of things. Your species arrives at the watering hole along with several others. Based on the cards you are given, and the circumstances in which you find the watering hole, you must make the right decisions.
Evolution does a good job taking you by the hand through the various sorts of condition in which your species has to survive. You can follow the tutorial levels in Campaign mode to learn all the tricks to survive. You have to be victorious too on each level, otherwise you can’t progress. Pay attention, as you really need the info given. Actually, I did the first campaign twice, as I was distracted during the first run and needed the info later on.
The Gameplay Explained
You start Evolution with one species, three slots for special traits and a hand of cards. First, you have to place a card in the watering hole which the other players can’t see. This determines how much food there will be to forage on. In fact, your first strategic decision. For instance, when you are a carnivore you might not care how much plant food there is!
When it’s your turn, you use the rest of the cards as you want. Give your species a special trait, like Warning call (where a carnivore must have Ambush to attack species on either side of you) or Cooperation, which lets you take extra food from the watering hole and share it to the species to your right. Combining Cooperation with the trait foraging is even better, and will give you more food with your opponents going hungry.
You don’t have to focus on just one of your species type, using your cards you can also choose to make more of your species. They may be easy prey at first, but they might grow out into a strong animal.
Another thing to do with the cards you get is add population, each of which has to be fed. And there’s body size, which can be a good one to have a high number in. A carnivore will have more trouble attacking you!
Lastly, you might consider using the carnivore trait on yourself, and turn your species into a meat eater. This changes everything: you can’t eat the plant-based food anymore. You have to eat the other species on the board. And try to circumvent the measures like traits they have taken to defend themselves.
Coming up as the winner
The population that can’t feed, dies. This goes for the herbivores but for the carnivores as well. And for every population you manage to feed, you get a point in that turn. In the end, when all cards are used, those points are counted. The traits you attributed give points too, as well as the number of population your have. Only the number one counts, there are no seconds in this game!
Key in this game is the strategy. Do I take my chances and focus on gobbling up a lot of food? Keeping my fingers crossed the other players won’t turn into carnivores? Or do I use my cards to protect myself from predators and don’t make too much of a herd for fear that they won’t be able to eat?
It took me some time to get all of this in my head, but once I understood I enjoyed myself a lot. In fact, I couldn’t stop playing. Just one more battle! It’s easy to pick up and play, and the each game isn’t overly long.
Local Gameplay and Online Battles
As Evolution is available now on several platforms, I was curious to test if there was syncing across the various games. I’m pleased to report that is a yes: if you make an account at North Star Digital Studios, the connections are instant. I had of course already finished the campaign, so my Switch game immediately registered that.
There are various ways to play Evolution: local gameplay, where you progress with your campaign, getting more and more new additions to the kind of cards you can use. You could also forgo on that and play against a random generated AI. I did this at first, and got all different cards that are available without knowing exactly what they were for. So, it was back to the Campaign for me. In local you can also pass and play and can also keep playing in the weekly challenge.
If you want to test your strength against other opponents you can go online. Let the game find a match for you where you can contribute a special card to the gameplay. Async games and Timed games let you play private games with friends. The Timed games happen in real time, where you can set a timer per turn. In Async games you and your friends don’t play in the same time zone, and the game just waits for you to make your next move.
You do need an account at North Star for the online gameplay on your Switch because the online gameplay can span various platforms, as I found when I went online in battle. My opponents were playing on PC and a mobile device.
A Beautiful Looking Game
Evolution does its best to create the feeling of explorers in the jungle.The music is laid back, the sounds of the jungle accompany you. When there’s so much food that the creatures can autofeed, it feels really good to hear the little popping sounds. In between the gameplay you’ll be surprised at the artists sketches that are included, they look beautiful and old at the same time.
I must admit that playing Evolution on my Switch felt like a step back from my iPad. The game is ported as is, which means that the screens on the Switch feel very small to my 50+ eyes. Everything plays smoothly, but the controls that have been adjusted for the controls of the Switch feel a bit clumsy to me. I found myself returning to my iPad version to play, feels a lot easier. But, that may be just me. If you have no problem with the smaller print going for the Switch version is a good way to play.
Conclusion
When I reviewed the mobile game on the iPad I wrote: “I can’t help but think that this game would be a wonderful game to add to the Switch library”.
I got my wish, Evolution is a great board game turned into a video game. It will give you the choice of what platform to play on, depending on the money you want to spend and your eyesight!
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot
I like the game, but I have two issues with it. One, the text is teeny tiny and clearly designed with a much larger screen in mind. Everyone needs to stop making Switch games that require reading but are hard to read. I’ve owned a lot of handhelds, and the Switch is the only one that ever forced me to go buy grandma reading glasses as a gaming accessory. But ok, I’ll play Evolution in docked mode. Except, two, the game is not compatible with the Switch pro controller. >< Grrrr. Your Switch game should be fully compatible with the Switch. The pro controller is not some obscure or niche third party peripheral that no one uses, they are quite popular, and Nintendo makes them. Combined, these issues make me feel like I'm playing a sloppy port of a great tablet game.