Designers: Phil Eklund (Bios: Mesofauna, High Frontier, Pax Porfiriana, Pax Renaissance), Harry-Pekka Kuusela (Essen, Galenus, Operation: Kindergarten)

Artists: Madeleine Fjäll (Bios: Mesofauna, Pax Viking), Josefin Strand (Galenus, High Frontier 4 All)

Publisher:  Ion Game Design (Galenus, Neanderthal, Pax Porfiriana, Pax Renaissance); Sierra Madre Games (Bios: Mesofauna, High Frontier, Pax Porfiriana, Pax Renaissance)

Genre/Mechanisms: area majority/influence, card drafting, modular board, territory building (Bios: Mesofauna); set collection, worker placement (Galenus)

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

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: heavy

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About: “Bios:Mesofauna is an alternative Bios:Megafauna. That is, it starts and ends at the same time. It follows the same sort of Achterbahn environment, same climate change, same or similar creeples, same VP, same tiles, same card colors, same cratons and drift, same basic and Achterbahn games, same catastrophes, same greenhouse, cloudiness, and oxygen. Same terrestrial settings. The setting is the same, only the animals are smaller.

Galenus is a worker placement game where you place up to 6 action pawns and then decide when and how to resolve them. In this way some players can still be placing pawns while you are already resolving them. You can choose to cure patients, which will gain knowledge in one of four types of ailments, publish works based on that knowledge, show off your skills in the theater, acquire medicines to aid your work, rest to rejuvenate your own health, or adopt a new philosophy. At the end of the round you compete in medical contests via blind bidding that may give you more prestige. Whoever has the most points gained from these various tasks or first publishes 8 works wins the game.”

How It Works: “‘Meso’ means ‘middle’, and Bios: Mesofauna investigates the ‘middle earth’ of creatures bigger than microbes yet smaller than megafauna. Start with an archetype species, and evolve into up to 6 more swimming, flying, burrowing, armored, or parasite species. Build a portrait of each species that gives you victory points according to its pheromones and population. Use a diceless contest mechanic to see which carnivore, herbivore, or parasite is the fittest to survive in a particular pollinator, herbivore, or carnivore niche.”

“The first player is the one with the highest Skeletal Number, then play continues clockwise in round robin fashion. The turn order never changes.”

“Each of your Species has 1 action each turn, choosing one from the following 7 possible actions: Mutate, Promote, Speciate, Populate, Neoteny, Zombie, and Pass. After each of your Species has performed its action, refresh the Display so that it once again has 5 cards per row. Do this by moving each card in the Display to the leftmost empty position in its row. Then draw new cards to fill any remaining empty positions so there are again 5 cards in each row. Draw cards from the respective metabolism or Darwinian draw deck to fill the rows from the leftmost empty slot.”

“If any cards with Events are revealed, perform the icons listed from left to right. However, ignore all Events that appear if the Display has been flushed. If multiple cards with Events have appeared, perform Events in the upper (metabolic) row first, from lowest to highest limit. Then do Events in the Darwinian row. If one of the Events is a fossil awards icon, then after fossil awards, check for the endgame trigger. If the trigger is pulled, then the game ends with this sequence: (1) make the Mutagen Roll and perform the mutagen event, and (2) perform final scoring.”

“At the end of the game, your final score is the sum of your Fossils (from Extinctions and from fossil awards events, Living Creeples, Zombie Creeples (of your color), and Pheromones. The winner is the player with the highest count.”

Comparisons: The Eklunds’ games (and those released through Sierra Madres Games in general) have a design sensibility that differs from many other games and is somewhat unique. In that sense, the best examples of Sierra Madres games are other Sierra Madre Games. Pax Viking had a Kickstarter this past year and is being positioned as the entry-level game in the Pax series, much like Bios: Mesofauna is a reimplementation of Bios: Megafauna and intended as a lighter entry into the Bios series. Pax Pamir (Second Edition) under the re-design of Cole Wehrle has become the standout title in their catalogue. Some other Sierra Madre games include Bios: Genesis, Bios: Origins, Greenland, High Frontier, John Company, Neanderthal, Pax Emancipation, Pax Porfiriana, Pax Renaissance, and Pax Transhumanity.

What Should I Pledge?:
$44 Arthropod: Bios: Mesofauna.
$64 Patrician: Galenus.
$99 From Cambria to Rome: Bios: Mesofauna and Galenus.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives
None.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $99 for the From Cambria to Rome pledge plus $35 in shipping for a total of $134.

Bios: Mesofauna & Galenus completes its Kickstarter on Monday, November 9th and tentatively ships in June 2021.