Designer:  Joe Hopkins (Endangered)

Artists: Josh Cappel (1960: The Making of a President, Belfort, Endeavor, Endeavor: Age of Sail, Fire & Axe: A Viking Saga, In the Hall of the Mountain King, The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, Pandemic, Scoville, Wasteland Express Delivery Service), Ben Flores (Endangered, The Pirate Republic)

Publisher:  Grand Gamers Guild (The Artemis Project, Endeavor: Age of Sail, Pocket Ops)

Genre/Mechanisms: cooperative game, dice rolling, expansion

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Endangered: New Species is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 6x the initial funding goal with 3+ days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About: “A big box expansion for Endangered. The race is on to save 7 species in 6 new scenarios. Can you convince the UN in time, all while racing to keep populations healthy and destruction at bay?”

How It Works: “Use a shared selection of actions– plus your own role’s special advantages– to work with the other players. Keep animals out of harm’s way, encourage them to produce young, limit the destruction of their environment, and deal with unpredictable events that arise. Endangered is also a modular game system. Each module tells a different story, offers unique challenges, and helps players understand the difficulties facing these animals and the conservationists determined to help them. These rules show the Tiger and Sea Otter modules.”

“The game is played over a number of rounds called Years. The game lasts a number of Years based on the number of players. Each player will get one turn per Year; turn order is determined by you as a group during the game. To begin the game, randomly pick a starting player. When your turn begins, place your Turn marker on the calendar track on top of the Year marker (and on top of any other Turn markers already there). Then perform the following phases in order: Actions Phase, Offspring Phase, Destruction Phase, Impact Phase, and Upkeep Phase.”

During the Actions Phase, the active player “reclaims and rolls their Action dice, place them on active Actions to perform abilities.”

“You are going to eventually need to satisfy the Ambassadors’ criteria in order to convince them to vote yes so that you can win the game. The Ambassadors begin the game face down, so you won’t know what their criteria are right away. To reveal an Ambassador, you must take an Action that allows you to Place Influence. As soon as an Ambassador receives its first Influence token, flip it over to reveal it.”

During the Offspring Phase, the active player “rolls the Offspring die to increase animal population.”

During the Destruction Phase, the active player “rolls the Destruction die to add destruction to the environment.”

During the Impact Phase, the active player “plays the top card from the Impact deck.”

And during the Upkeep Phase, the active player “draws a new Action card, and picks a player with a Turn marker to go next.”

“While you tackle immediate threats, you also must try to satisfy a panel of ambassadors that each have unique motivations for voting to protect the animals. Your group wins the game together if you can get 4 ambassadors to vote yes by the end of the game. Your group loses the game at the end if you can’t make that happen, or immediately during the game if your animal population declines too low, or if the environment suffers too much destruction.”

The New Species expansion comes with 4 more scenarios, bringing the current total to 6, along with a Celebrity Role that expands gameplay variability.

Comparisons: For environmental-themed games, there’s Antiquity, Barrage, CO2: Second Chance, Dominant Species, the Evolution series (including Oceans), Ginkgopolis, The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, Myrmes, the Pandemic series, Parks, Photosynthesis, Quadropolis, Reef Encounter, Spirit Island, Sylvion, Takenoko, Tang Garden, and Terraforming Mars. For worker placement games using dice as workers, there’s Alien Frontiers, Bora Bora, The Castles of Burgundy, Coimbra, Crystal Palace, Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Euphoria: Build a Better Dysopia, Kingsburg, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Madeira, Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan, Pulsar-2849, Teotihuacan: City of Gods, Troyes, and The Voyages of Marco Polo.

Of the games on both of those lists, CO2: Second Chance, the Pandemic series, Sylvion, and Spirit Island are also cooperative.

What Should I Pledge?:
$45 Naturalist: a copy of the Kickstarted Edition of Endangered: New Species, including the Jaguar & Tapir Scenario, Sea Turtle Scenario, Polar Bear Scenario, Elephant Scenario, Celebrity Role, Spot Coating on the Box, and all unlocked stretch goals.
$99 Conservationist: includes everything in the Naturalist pledge, plus a copy of the Endangered base game.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives
The Celebrity Role and all associated components, the Spot Coating, and the Campaign Mode area all Kickstarter exclusives, though the Campaign Mode may eventually be offered at retail as a standalone product.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $99 for the Conservationst pledge and $12 in shipping for a total of $111.

Endangered: New Species completes its Kickstarter on Friday, August 28th and tentatively ships in September 2021.