Designers: Nick Bentley (Stinker), Dominic Carpuchettes (Evolution, Evolution: Climate, Say Anything, Wits & Wagers), Ben Goldman, Brian O’Neill

Artists: Guillaume Ducos (Edge of Darkness, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Sifaka), Catherine Hamilton (Evolution, Evolution: Climate)

Publisher: North Star Games (Evolution, Evolution: Climate, The Quacks of Quedlinburg, Say Anything, Wits & Wagers)

Genre/Mechanisms: card selection, hand management, resource management

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Oceans is already fully-funded. In fact, pledges currently total more than 33x the initial funding goal!

Player Count: 2-6

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: low

What It’s About: A standalone game in the Evolution series, this engine-builder has players assembling scientific traits to create ocean creatures better equipped to survive and evolve than their opponents. Oceans comes with a 75-card expansion, The Deep.

How It Works: Each game has 2 random scenarios included from a deck of at least 25. Players start with a hand of 7 cards. On their turn, players will execute the following phases: Play Cards, Feeding, Aging, Extinction, Draw Cards. During the Play Cards phase, players may take 1 action using a Surface card and remove any number of cards from their species. Later in the game after the Cambrian explosion begins (after the first Scenario Card is triggered), players will get 2 Surface card actions and may play Deep cards. During the Play Cards phase, players may also add traits to their sea creatures and Migrate with them. The Feeding phase allows players to Forage, growing their species, or to Attack other species. The Aging Phase is a soft timer where players remove 1 population from each species, placing it in their score pile behind their player screen. In the Extinction phase, any species left with 0 population goes extinct. The Draw Cards Phase allows players to optionally draw 1 Deep card, then choose to either draw the top face-up card form a Gene Pool pile, or draw 3 cards from the Deep deck, keeping 1. Finally, the player refills their hand from the Surface deck until they once again have 7 cards. Once all Ocean zones have been depleted, the first player to gain population triggers the end of the game. Points are scored for each population token in the player’s score pile as well as on their surviving species, and for the player’s bonus score token.

Comparisons: The easiest comparisons are the other Evolution games. They may be different mechanically, but the central conceit remains the same- evolve your creatures into the best survivors, defeating weaker species to help boost your lead.. Also, Thatgamecompany’s 2006 video game Flow may serve as an interesting reference point.

What Should I Pledge?:
$45 Standard Edition: the retail version with applicable stretch goals.
$70 Deluxe Edition: the deluxe version with applicable stretch goals.
$3,000 Deluxe Edition + Box Cover Painting: the deluxe version with applicable stretch goals and the original watercolor paiting for the box’s cover art. Only 1 of these!

Add-Ons:
$40 Evolution
$12 a Steam code worth 30% off of the Evolution PC game
$60 Evolution: Climate
$25 Evolution: The Beginning
$12 Evolution Foiled Promo Card Pack #1
$17 Evolution Foiled Promo Card Pack #2
$15 Evolution Foiled Promo Card Pack #3 (Card Packs #1-3 can be used with both Evolution and Evolution: Climate)
$14 Wood Fish Tokens
$40 per Oceans art print; choose from among 12 different prints.

KS Exclusives:
Two sets of bonus cards have been generated throughout the campaign as stretch goals. One set will be included in all versions of the game, including the retail version. The deluxe stretch goal set will only be included in the deluxe version, but will also be available through North Star Game’s website following the campaign for $17.

All-In Total: In the U.S., you’re looking at $70 for the Deluxe Edition plus $10 in shipping, for a total of $80.

Evolution, Evolution: The Beginning, and Evolution: Climate are all standalone games of varying complexity, so it’s unlikely anyone would want to order all three. The Beginning is the simplest of the bunch, and a scaled-back version of the original; while Climate is a more complex version of Evolution with additional mechanics. Purchasing Climate along with the 3 Card Packs would run you another $104 plus an additional $5-10 in shipping. Your grand total would then be roughly $189-195, depending on final shipping rates.

Oceans completes its Kickstarter on Friday, April 26th and tentatively ships in September 2019.