Every card in the Deep is unique, powerful, and has a cost if you use it to evolve a species! They may be played to evolve a species or to migrate population. Trait cards override the core rules and the Scenario cards, but they only apply to the species on which they are played. Most traits have an understood “This species” at the start of the card textbox. PLAYING THE GAME:

Each species is defined by its population and its traits. Through the game species will gain and lose traits, and gain and lose population depending on what it can eat, and what can eat it. Despite your best efforts, some species will go extinct! This unassuming process works in the same way for feeding from other sources, whilst the defensive symbol (yellow shell) reduces the amount of population that another species can take from your species. Oceans is a game based on natural selection with fantastical leanings. As a former biologist with an interest in board games with depth and being part-seal myself, you’d think I’d be disappointed. Additionally, there are 2 randomly chosen scenario cards that activate and deactivate at various points during the game. The scenario cards impact the basic tenets of gameplay, encouraging people to vary their play style and strategy each game. At the game’s start, the only food source is plankton, the foundation of the ocean food web. It populates the beautifully illustrated Reef and Ocean boards. Your goal is to create and evolve species, so they find their niche in the growing ecosystem, by giving them helpful combinations of traits.The odd production decisions extend to the box. For a game mostly consisting of tokens and cards it is absolutely huge, with a really odd insert. Now you might think that there is room in this insert for expansions. No doubt there will be some, but I bought the version with components for 5-6 players, with extra species boards, tokens, and screens. The tokens are fine but the screens and species boards just have nowhere to go. The rulebooks don’t even sit in the box flat. The production decisions are just baffling. During the second half of the game, players can use power cards from The Deep to disrupt the stability. With over 100 unique traits in The Deep, players will slowly discover game-altering traits over the course of many games. These traits were designed to evoke wonder and disbelief - to spark your imagination as you consider the fantastic synergies that are possible in Oceans. It’s fun to explore new combinations and options, to slot traits together and see how they interact. The designers understand that “games are about feeling”: it feels pretty great when you figure out how to swim past the gaping mouths waiting for you on your next turn. The world is a wondrous place and Oceans, with its gorgeous Surface traits and beguiling Deep traits, lets you feel that wonder, evoking a sense of danger and exploration, risk and astonishment. I’m an admirer of the Evolution series, interested in board games with depth and am part-seal myself so you’d think I would have dived straight into Oceans.

Oceans is, for me, the pinnacle of all branches of the Evolution board game tree. Setting the Ocean Colour Scene Instead of managing body size and population size alongside herbivorous and carnivorous diets, Oceans does away with body size entirely, makes all its animals omnivorous from the very start and combines population and food into one concept. It’s all ruled by just 4 symbols which dictate your ability to feed (from the reef, the ocean and your opponents) and defend yourself. If a species has a Reef score (green circle) of 2 then it can take 2 food from the reef area – its population has now grown by 2. I’ve enjoyed many games of Evolution: Climate and Evolution: New World. These are great games that nail their theme and gameplay. They’re engaging, challenging and entertaining. Journey Into the Deep: Featuring nearly 100 unique trait cards, The Deep represents the unknown: the undiscovered wonders of the deep ocean you'll be exploring over countless games. If the Cambrian Explosion has not yet started, remove 1 population from each of your species and place it behind your player screen in your score pile. If the Cambrian Explosion has started, place 2 population from each of your species into your score pile. Score all of your population if youYou will have an opportunity to feed it during your next turn before your aging phase. PHASE 4: DRAWING CARDS

Oceans is an interactive engine builder, where players evolve their species in a continually changing ecosystem. Players must adapt their interconnected ecosystem to survive against the inevitable march of time (Aging), as well as a multitude of predators looking for food. Feeding may trigger a gains icon on another species, including a species belonging to another player. When a species gains population, it takes the number of population in the blue gains icon from the 1st Ocean zone. If the 1st Ocean zone is empty (or becomes empty), continue taking population from the 2nd Ocean zone, and from the 3rd Ocean zone if the 2nd becomes empty. If the 3rd Ocean zone becomes empty, place the 60 “reserve” population into the 3rd Ocean zone so that every triggered trait is able to take the proper amount of population.You may never place a population token on the space with the fishbones unless it is the only available space on the species board. My recorded win rate in marvel champions is about 65%, which feels about right. More than anything I want wins to feel hard fought and losses to have felt winnable up until we got crushed, whatever...

Each time these levels of the ocean become depopulated an event card is triggered. This changes the game mechanics. Sometimes these are subtle, just making some types of cards more effective. Other times these cards can completely up-end the game, forcing faster ageing of species and changing the way you have to play. Even better the glorious Deep cards that are introduced add massive variety to the game. you can draft one each turn and playing it costs the fish which are your victory points. If the revised feeding rules add flexibility, the additions of ageing and overpopulation provide bite.

However, Oceans deviates from its forebears in some interesting ways, creating an experience that’s far more open, exploratory and dynamic. Oceans is a nature-themed strategy board game published in 2020 by North Star Games. [1] It is a game in the Evolution series. [2] It’s the first game in the series where the challenge is as much about surviving the machinations of the game itself as it is about outcompeting your opponents. As much a brawl against each other as everyone fighting not to be eaten by the shark first. The Sea is Emotion Incarnate Every species in Oceans lives in the same environment: the left-most species of each player is adjacent to the right-most species of the next player. Many traits trigger based on the feeding of an adjacent species. The arrow icon at the bottom of a trait refers to the species immediately adjacent to that side The Cambrian Explosion is a period in Earth’s history when a proliferation of new species came into existence. It took place over 500 million years ago and lasted for about 25 million years. Scientists don’t know what caused the Cambrian Explosion but it was likely due to an increase in oceanic oxygen levels.