Nearly eight years ago, I posted about the game Evolution and its expansion, Evolution: Flight. Now I’m back to talk about Evolution: The Beginning!
The Beginning is effectively a simplified, faster version of Evolution. Instead of players each carrying out one turn phase, then moving on to the next, and so on, The Beginning has players run through every step before play passes to the next person. It’s a little bit less competitive that way, in that the food you’re working with is in the Watering Hole because you put it there, and if you run out, it’s purely because your species have too high a population to sustain. Other players may leave more or less excess on their turn, but they aren’t taking a pass at what’s available on yours.
The quantity of food you’re working with isn’t as variable, either, nor is the amount of cards in your hand. The number of each added per turn is now static. While you can still discard cards to create a new species, you get one for free every turn, and predation no longer requires that the Carnivore be larger than its prey. It simply needs the appropriate Traits to bypass any defensive Traits its prey may have. Body size isn’t a factor at all! However, both games handle extinction, end-of-game criteria, and scoring (mostly) the same. Collect lots of food to win, and if you tie, order pizza and play again!
I said in my 2015 post that I loved Evolution, and I still do. That’s why I like Evolution: The Beginning so much. It lets me play one of my long-standing favorites even when I don’t want to think enough for the original!
