Nature is a 2025 release game from NorthStar Games and a re-implementation of their title Evolution. It is designed by Dominic Crapuchettes, with art in the base game by Catherine Hamilton. The game also has 7 follow-up modules in the works, done by a range of different artists. Nature plays up to 4 players, with a solo mode.
From my understanding, Nature was designed to take the older game – Evolution – revitalize it, and make it a more approachable experience for family and gamers alike.
In Nature, players use cards in their hand to manipulate their animal species. Each player starts with one species and a handful of cards. Each card has a specific trait on it that can be played to an animal species, each animal able to have up to 3 traits. Additionally cards can be played to increase the population of one of your species or increase the size.
The more population you have, the more food you have to provide from the watering hole to feed them all. The bigger the size of your animal, the more food they can take from the watering hole at one time. The different traits of your animals will allow you to manipulate the standard rules of the game and make it a more effective animal at surviving. Players can also turn their species into hunters, that gain their food from preying on other animals.
Each animal you have and all their population must be fed at the end of the round to survive or they will starve and die off. Hunters can eat other animals, but if your opponents animals are too strong, you might end up eating your own animals or starving.
If you’ve played Evolution, the teach on this one is super straightforward and easy. Even if you haven’t played the previous game, this one is a fairly light lift in regards to cognitive load of the learning process.
On Board Game Arena, the tutorial was created by contig. Now, if you’ve been following along, I’ve mentioned that one of the other tutorial designers occasionally has bugs in the process that can freeze up the tutorial, and one of my reasons why they seem to have more issues than other tutorials is that they don’t just push the player through the tutorial, they allow for interaction with that tutorial. Well, this is an example of a tutorial that just pushes you through the steps and pushes the buttons for you. That doesn’t mean the tutorial is bad, it does what it needs to do and provides the necessary information for players to learn how to play the game. I just personally feel that tutorials are more effective when the player can actually click and interact with the game, so they get a feel for how the game will play on this platform. So, tutorial okay and functional, but not the best it could be.
The game is enjoyable in it’s easy of play and simplicity, compared to the meatier Evolution. I like the way that turns are quick with meaningful decisions, but also easy choices to make. This version is also a little nicer. If one of your species goes extinct, by it’s last population being killed or starving, the killed population and size dial are set to the side and are added to your new species on the next round, making that species stronger at the start.
However, this game falls into that weird space for me where it is both light and bigger than just a card game. I can see Nature being the kind of games that I pick up for my 8 year old, as I think that he would be able to pick up the concepts and play the game at his age. This could also be a good entry level game for many adults that are not gamers.
As is, it just doesn’t hit the same level of complexity that I’d regularly play with my husband or is small enough to be travel friendly. So, while I enjoy the play and it’s a solid game, it likely won’t see much play from me.
I’m rating this one a 7/10 on Board Game Geek. If someone has it and suggests it, I’m game to play, but probably wouldn’t suggest it myself much.
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