Designer: Chris Bryan (Dragon Ball Z: Perfect Cell, Favelas, Lanterns Dice: Lights in the Sky)

Artist: Vincent Dutrait (Broom Service, Dead Man’s Draw, Diplomacy, Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Elysium, Jaipur, Lewis & Clark, Lost Cities, Lovecraft Letter, Medici, Mythic Battles: Pantheon, New York 1901, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set, Raptor, Rise of Augustus, Robinson Crusoe: Adventures of the Cursed Island, When I Dream, Wyatt Earp)

Publisher: Green Couch Games (Best Treehouse Ever, Fidelitas, Rocky Road a la Mode)

Genre/Mechanisms: set collection, tile placement, worker placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Darwinauts is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 1.5x the initial funding goal, with 2 and a half days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About:  Sort of the board game version of No Man’s Land, where players have traveled to dangerous alien lands (via a scientist-discovered portal) and must record the alien species there.

How It Works: Each turn, the player takes 2 actions from among the possible 5: Place an Explorer (onto one half of a tile, as long as there is no explorer on the connected color region), Place a Tile (from the player’s personal supply, and adjacent to at least one previously placed tile), Remove all Explores and Draw 2 Tiles, Discover a Species (from one of the 3 face up Species cards), and Record a Species (using the resources on the card, either from your personal supply or the species supply). At any time, players may also take the Free Action of exchangine 3 of any resource from their personal supply for 1 of a different resource from the general supply. Additionally, after Recording a Species, players also take 1 Bonus Action from among the following: Rotate a Tile (not currently occupied by an Explorer), Move a Tile (with at least one side free, and not currently occupied by an Explorer), Discover a Species, Discard Face-Up Species (place the 3 Face-Up Species in the discard pile, draw 3 new Species to replace them, then Discover a Species), or Take Any One Resource.

When the Rift tile is revealed, players stop drawing back up to 2 tiles every turn. Instead, they remove 3 outside tiles (not currently occupied by an Explorer) from the game area. Once a player can not remove 3 tiles on their turn, each player takes one more action, and then the game ends. Players earn points for complete Species cards, sets of 3 of the same species type (same color) and/or 4 different species (different colors), and 1 point for every 2 resources left in their supply. The player with the most points wins.

Comparisons:  As mentioned previously, thematically the game is similar to the video game No Man’s Land. Players are tasked with recording alien species, featuring some wonderful art by Vincent Dutrait. Terraforming Mars and Eclipse are both sci-fi-themed games that include tile placement, but those games are both much heavier and also feature a slew of other mechanics. Carcassonne, Explorers of the North Sea, and Taluva are 3 lighter tile placement games that all have players competing for points while placing their tiles in the same central game area (as opposed to games where each player is working within their own private tile-building area).

What Should I Pledge?:
$39 Standard Explorer: a copy of Darwinauts with all unlocked stretch goals and free U.S. shipping.
$55 Decorated Explorer: a copy of Darwinauts with all unlocked stretch goals, the play mat, and free U.S. shipping.

Add-Ons:
$30 Best Treehouse Ever: Forest of Fun, with free U.S. shipping.
$15 Filler, with free U.S. shipping.
$20 Before the Earth Explodes, with free U.S. shipping.
$20 Into the Black Forest, with free U.S. shipping.

KS Exclusives:
None.

All-In Total: If you’re not interested in Green Couch Games’ other offerings in the add-ons, then in the continental U.S. you’re looking at $55 for the Decorated Explorer pledge, shipping included.

Darwinauts completes its Kickstarter on Sunday, July 14th and tentatively ships in March 2020.