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Unplugged Games > Primordial Soup (Boardgame)
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Despite being available only in German, Ursuppe ( a game of feeding and evolving amoebas) gained a following even among non-German speakers. Thanks to Z-Man games, this excellent board game is now available in English as Primordial Soup to the American public. In it, players manage a race of amoebas buying racial upgrades in the form of Gene Cards and splitting their charges to increase their number. Players are awarded victory points at the end of every round based on the number of their amoebas and the number of Gene Cards they have purchased. The game ends at the end of a round where a player has obtained a minimum number of victory points. Primordial Soup is easy to play, but due to the many different strategies that can be formed due to Gene Cards it has a moderate learning curve of one or two games. As a game rich in theme and strategy, it comes highly recommended.
To start, players are given a set of 7 amoebas in their color numbered from one to seven. A player selects two and places them onto the game board. Each player is given four Biological Points (BP ﾖ the game's currency) and the grid-like board is filled with two food cubes of each of the four colors of amoeba (only three colors are used in a three player game). Play consists of a round divided into six phases. All players perform the appropriate action(s) in a phase the next phase begins. In the first phase, movement and feeding occurs. Being rather helpless creatures, amoebas default to drifting one space in the direction shown on a central Environment card. If this is undesirable, a player may spend a BP to roll a die and move in a random direction instead. Starting with their lowest numbered amoeba, a player first moves it, then "eats" three colored cubes from the amoeba's square. The three cubes must match the three colors of the opposing amoebas ﾖ an amoeba can never eat food cubes of its own color. (In a three player game, amoebas must still eat three cubes, but eat two of one of the opposing colors rather than their own color.) If an amoeba eats successfully, it then excretes two food cubes of its own color. In this way, food cubes are slowly removed from the game, and players whose amoebas begin to congregate within a small area will soon be sitting amongst food cubes of their own color. If an amoeba cannot feed, it suffers one point of damage. Amoebas begin the game able to take up to two points of damage.  Once all players have moved and fed their herd, a new Environment Card is drawn and placed in the middle of the board. This new card has two effects. It shows what direction amoebas will be drifting in the next turn (North, South, East, West, or None), and it has an Ozone Layer Thickness value. Players' Gene Cards each have a mutation value, if the total of the mutation values of their Gene Cards is greater than the Ozone Layer Thickness, a player must either get rid of a card or pay a fine in BPs. Once any genes are discarded or fines are paid, players may then use their remaining BPs to purchase new Gene Cards. The primary source of strategy within the game is purchasing Gene Cards. Each card allows players to break the rules of the game in a specified way. Movement cards allow a player to have more control over their amoeba's movement, other cards give amoebas a form of attack, defensive cards can help amoebas escape or be immune to attacks, and another class of cards modifies the feeding requirements of your amoebas. As there are only one or two of each type of Gene Card available, players must prioritize which cards are more valuable for them. In the three player game, purchases are even more tense since only one of each Gene card is available. Some players may save up for the more expensive Genes first while others may opt for purchases of one or more of the lower-priced abilities. A third option is to save one's BPs and focus on spending them in the next phase, Cell Division.  After Gene Cards are purchased, players collect 10 BPs worth of income and then have the option of spawning new amoebas onto the board. Each new amoeba costs 6 BPs and must be placed adjacent to an amoeba of its own color. It is wise to pay attention to the drift located on the current Environment Card as it is silly to place an amoeba into a location where it is sure to begin to starve on the next turn. After players add any desired amoebas to the game board, amoeba deaths are resolved. Any amoeba who has taken two or more damage points is removed from the board and replaced with two food cubes of each color in play. With a wealth of food so quickly available, planning your movement and Cell Division with amoeba death in mind pays off handsomely. In the final phase, players calculate their score based on the number of their amoebas on the board and the number of gene cards purchased. In descending order (first to last place), players move their score markers the requisite number of spaces around the scoring track on the outside of the board. To give a slight nudge to the trailing players, any scoring space that is occupied is skipped over or "leapfrogged". In this way, a losing player with a particularly good round may be able to jump to the head of the pack. The game ends during any scoring phase where a marker enters the finish zone at the end of the scoring track. Once all players score, whoever has the most victory points, wins the game. With the many brightly colored pieces, the game looks great when set out on a table. A quick scan of the board will reveal concentrations of various colors of food cubes and areas that are particularly rich or poor in food are easily spotted. There is a nice set of checks and balances within the game to keep the game as close as possible until the end. In addition to leapfrogging scoring spaces, losing players always move and feed first ﾖ getting first dibs on precious food cubes. As consolation, leading players have first dibs on whichever Gene Cards they can afford, allowing them to purchase the gene cards they want before anyone else can interfere. A wide variety of viable strategies keeps the game exciting and allows plenty of replay value. While some will gravitate towards the offensive skills which seem to be simpler to execute, players can also focus on winning by out-producing or out-eating their opponents. As the board fills up with amoebas, players who tend to over-analyze their situation have a tendency to slow the game down. Since all actions are sequential, this can create a bit of down-time while players wait for each other. This mainly occurs during the movement and feeding phase since there is a bit of shuffling of little food cubes around as amoebas feed and excrete. If players help each other with the housekeeping tasks of moving cubes around, it helps to keep the game moving. Despite these minor setbacks, Primordial Soup is an excellent example of what can be produced when interesting strategic options and a strong, entertaining theme are combined with high quality game components ﾖ highly recommended to anyone who has even a slight interest in the theme. 
Primordial Soup is easy to play and should be accessible by anyone 12+. The most difficult part of the game involves strategic purchases of mutation cards for one's own use or to prevent their acquisition by an opposing player. If you play the game with pre-teens, be prepared for ongoing "poop" jokes throughout the game. There can be direct conflict between players, but there is a rule to keeps any player from being eliminated. However, once someone is on the verge of being eliminated, they are probably already falling behind in points. This game has lots of little tiny pieces (the food cubes) so should be played in areas out of reach of small children or excitable pets.
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