Disclaimer: This post was written while listening to an orchestral version of the Legend of Zelda theme song.
Long time, and long missed, Ludocrats Emma and Jessica were interested in coming over, seeing my new Neato, and playing some heavy, award winning, strategy games. Well, specifically one game: Dominant Species. Brekke said this game was on his “bucket list” so he was given the invite as well.
I walked Erik through the rules before the ladies showed up and he chose Mammals as his animal. Jessica chose Reptiles, Emma picked Arachnids and I wanted to try Insects. Right from the start, Jessica put her scaly foot on my throat and never let up. Emma started nibbling at everyone and filled up her adaptability to dominate everything as well. Erik held his own admitting “I’m only choosing the actions that I know how to do…” My insects, however, were lagging behind everyone substantially. All the grass was getting wastelanded off of the tiles and my only adaptation was Sunlight which of course my direct competitor Reptiles had in spades. Not even planking was helping.
We ended the game a turn early and Emma and her Arachnids were the runaway winners. She was dominating so many tiles that the Ice Age bonus was just too much. She finished with over 100 points and more than doubled my score.
This game is great and wonderfully chaotic. I’d like to play it again and not lose by so much. In that same vein, I will be trying the Advanced version of Through the Ages today and I imagine I’ll be losing by a lot there as well. ALSO: Has anyone made a YouTube for “Shit Boardgamers Say”?
