I’m about to start playing through the Phil Eklund game Bios: Megafauna, working from an opening situation that was defined by my play-through of the prequel Bios: Genesis. The ultimate goal here is to define an alien Earthlike world, with its own unique flora and fauna, and its own sentient species, all for the use of my creative work.

At the moment, the planet is at the end of its analogue of the Proterozoic era, although the situation is a little more complex than what our Earth saw. There has already been plant and animal life on the planet’s small continents for a very long time, it just never developed a complex ecology or life forms larger than the palm of a human hand. Now new families of animal life are finally emerging onto the shores, and land-based evolution is finally getting kicked off in earnest.

The planet’s land masses are strung out along the equator, in the form of four cratons that are in the process of coalescing into Earth-style continents. To avoid the sense that this is really Earth we’re talking about, we’ll assign these cratons Greek letters instead of referring to them by their names. “Siberia” will be called Alpha, “Gondwana” will be called Beta, “Baltica” will be called Gamma, and “Laurentia” will be called Delta.

The four player positions are as follows:

• Player Orange represents a family of hydroskeletal invertebrates. Since he was far ahead of the other players during the Bios: Genesis game, his Archetype species is already on land and has a number of evolutionary developments in place. His initial population is represented by an Archetype “creeple” (a small orange dome piece) on Delta.
• Player Black represents a family of exoskeletal arthropods. His initial species is a Marine Archetype, a relatively primitive creature with no significant traits. The initial population is represented by a Swimmer creeple (resembling a little wooden dolphin) just off the coast of Alpha.
• Player White represents a family of endoskeletal vertebrates. His initial population of Marine Archetype creatures is represented by a Swimmer creeple off the coast of Beta.
• Player Green represents a family of cytoskeletal plants, most of whose member species are likely to be somewhat carnivorous or even motile. His initial population is represented by a Swimmer creeple off the coast of Gamma.

Player Orange has a considerable advantage, especially since the other three players all need to finish moving up onto the land before they can make significant progress. With that summary, let’s begin.

Turn One (0 – 30 million years)

Normally, each turn is kicked off by the draw of at least one, and most likely two, event cards. The first turn is an exception – no events take place, according to the “Boring Ordovician” rule. The motive here is to let everyone get a foothold before the cycle of random events begins, since most of the events range from disruptive to mass extinction brutal. If I were using the game’s Living Rules, I wouldn’t even draw an event card, and everyone would move in a pre-defined player order. Since I’m not, I draw the first event: Ocean Rifting, and use that card to define player order for the turn without implementing the rest of the card.

At present, the planet’s atmosphere has 7% free oxygen, its albedo is 0.4, and the climate is “Eden.” Player Green gets three actions, while the other players get two.

Players Black, White, and Green all face an immediate challenge. They can’t increase the size of their Marine Archetype species without immediately turning it into a land-based Archetype, which will immediately become Endangered because it’s out at sea. Unfortunately, since all of their Marine Archetypes are very small, and none of them have any blue (reproductive strategy) traits yet, they can’t spread very quickly or very far. So, with their budget of actions, they’re probably going to want to acquire some blue traits, prepare to place new creeples on the map, and eventually increase their Archetype’s size to make the transition.

Green chooses to invest in some useful traits first. He acquires the Sensory Hairs and Windborne Seeds traits for his Marine Archetype. The Sensory Hairs trait would normally be illegal for Green, since it comes from the trait deck containing red and yellow cards, off-limits for plants. However, Sensory Hairs is marked with a “horror plant” icon that makes it legal for him to purchase. He closes out his turn by promoting Windborne Seeds to Hitchhiking Seeds, moving one blue cube onto his Archetype and acquiring another. Green’s Archetype now has a reproductive strategy that should be very effective in spreading across the land.

White’s approach is more straightforward. Green’s purchase of Windborne Seeds exposed the Courtship Dance trait in the deck of blue and green cards. White acquires this trait and two blue cubes. He then places two creeples into the “Newborns” pool, ready to deploy them onto the map at the end of the turn.

Black acquires the Air Sacs trait for his Marine Archetype. This is an indirect move, since it provides his Archetype a yellow cube rather than a blue one. However, when promoted, Air Sacs will give Black the opportunity to create a new Flyer species. On this world, arthropods seem ready to take to the air directly from the sea. Black places a single creeple into Newborns.

Orange promotes the Egg Case trait his Archetype already has to Jelly Eggs, moving two blue cubes onto his Archetype card. He moves four Archetype creeples into Newborns. Since Orange is already on the land without immediate competition, he intends to grab as much territory as he can up front.

Once all player actions are complete, it’s time for Newborns to be deployed to the map, and for any Endangered populations to be removed.

White has acquired considerable mobility with the two blue cubes he acquired with Courtship Dance. From his starting position off the east coast of Beta, he places one creeple in a hex on Beta with Swamp terrain. He then uses “rafting” to cross the gap between Beta and Alpha, placing his second creeple in the Swamp hex on Alpha. Swamp terrain is land, so the land Archetype can survive there, permitting White to make the transition next turn.

Meanwhile, Black makes no attempt to move onto land this turn, placing his second Swimmer creeple in the other sea hex near Alpha. Orange scatters his Archetype creeples across land hexes on Delta, one of them rafting over to land in the Swamp hex on Gamma. Green has no Newborns to place, and there are no Endangered creeples to remove, so this ends the turn.

Turn Two (30 – 60 million years)

The event this turn is Tunguska Magma Coals. Somewhere on the planet, a large volcanic province is heating coal beds and dumping lots of methane into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, continental drift gets started, as Alpha moves eastward and collides with Beta, producing a belt of mountains in the westernmost hex of Beta. The two cratons will now move together as a fill-fledged continent. Carbon deposits around the world are “liberated” into the atmosphere. Sea levels rise with the increased greenhouse effect.

The event kicks off a mass extinction, which will be represented by the loss of blue or green traits from each species, an effect called “Darwinian Radiation” in the rules. Effectively, the largest and most specialized members of each family will be driven into extinction, leaving behind more primitive forms. White loses one cube from the Courtship Dance card on his Archetype. Orange loses the Jelly Eggs trait, while Green loses the Hitchhiking Seeds trait. Black is unaffected, since the one card he purchased last turn gave him no blue or green traits.

At this point, the planet has 6% free oxygen in the atmosphere, albedo of 0.4, and a Warm climate. Player Green gets three actions, while the other players get two actions.

White begins the turn by resizing his Marine Archetype species to size 2. The leading members of this family are now larger animals, about 2 kilograms in mass. The Marine Archetype is replaced by the Land Archetype, all of the Swimmer creeples replaced by the little domes of Archetypes. The creeple remaining off the coast of Beta becomes Endangered.

White also promotes the Courtship Dance trait to Territorialism. This moves the remaining blue cube on the card to his Archetype, and gives the species the blue “Monster” marker. This marker is always equivalent to as many blue cubes as the size of the species, so at present White’s Archetype species is heavily invested in reproductive strategy. The Territorialism card also carries the beginnings of one or more “emotions,” cognitive traits that will emerge as the species develops a more sophisticated brain.

Orange acquires the Crop trait for his Archetype species. He also engages in “neoteny,” removing one of the cubes presently sitting on his Archetype card. This is a hedge against a possible mass-extinction event that might occur in the future. The rules state that if any species is forced to give up a “basal organ” – a cube sitting on its core card, representing a well-established trait – then the species simply becomes extinct at once. At present, the Orange Archetype carries four such basal organs; the current limit (determined, for everyone but Player Green, by the level of free oxygen in the atmosphere) is lower than this. Orange hopes to reduce the Archetype’s vulnerability, although it’s possible (even likely) that the level of free oxygen will rise before the specific event he’s worried about takes place.

Green acquires Haustorium (an adaptation of plant roots) and promotes the Sensory Hairs trait to Urticating Hairs. The Green Archetype now has the Venom icon, which limits how easily other species can prey upon it. Green places a Swimmer creeple into Newborns.

Black promotes the Air Sacs trait to Flow-Through Lungs. This automatically creates a new species, a Flyer, which is inherently more mobile (although it can’t survive at sea). Black replaces one of his Swimmer creeples with a Flyer, which immediately becomes Endangered. Black also places a Flyer creeple into Newborns. This is actually a rather aggressive move; each species has a limit of only seven creeples on the map, so having more than one species in play means that a greater population can be supported in the long run.

During the dispersal of Newborns, Green places an Archetype creeple in the same hex on Gamma already containing one of Orange’s creeples. Green immediately chooses to move his creeple into the carnivore role, enabling it to share the hex as a predator on the Orange species. We can imagine this as a parasitic plant starting to prey upon animals in the area. Meanwhile, Black places a Flyer creeple on land in Beta. The White Archetype and Black Flyer stranded at sea both die and are returned to the players’ pools.

Turn Three (60 – 90 million years)

The event this turn is Failed Rifts, which requires a second event, so I draw a card from the event deck for warm climates and get Rivers. One of the continents is “extending,” creating rift basins but not quite managing to break apart into its component cratons. Meanwhile, major rivers are forming, carrying nutrient-rich silt onto alluvial plains and into the seas.

Continental drift pulls the Alpha-Beta continent southward. Delta also moves westward and collides with Gamma, causing an orogenic episode which creates mountains just where the Orange and Green creeples are starting to intermingle. Gamma and Delta now form another full-fledged continent. The Orange and Green creeples in the new mountain hex become Endangered.

This event combination calls for several green disks to be pulled off the atmosphere tracks and placed on the map. For the first time, very large plants are appearing across big areas of continental land – the planet’s first forests. This doesn’t disturb any of the creeples already in play, although the presence of forest can change how species competition works in a given hex.

Orange, with the most creeples on the map, suffers a “crowd disease” event and is forced to remove half of his Archetype creeples. He chooses to remove one from the new mountain hex on Gamma, since that one is already Endangered. The other one comes from elsewhere on Gamma.

At this point, the planet’s atmosphere has 15% free oxygen – probably the biggest, fastest “oxygen spike” in its entire geologic history. Albedo is still at 0.4, and planetary climate is Warm. All players get three actions this turn.

Black invests further in his Flyer species, acquiring the Antennae and Aggregation Pheromones traits for it. He also resizes the Flyers to size 2, although he leaves his Marine Archetype species at size 1 so that it doesn’t automatically convert into a land species.

White acquires more traits for his Archetype species: Brainstem and Periodontum. He places one Archetype Creeple into Newborns. At this point, he is restraining the spread of his Archetype species, putting creeples into Newborns much more slowly than he could. This maintains a large creeple reserve, so that White continues to have better access to upcoming cards in the traits decks.

Orange acquires Scutes for his Archetype species, and resizes it to size 2 to keep up with the leaders. He engages in neoteny, removing one of the blue cubes from his Archetype card.

Green acquires the Xylem trait for his Marine Archetype, and then resizes it to size 2. The Marine Archetype is immediately replaced with the Land Archetype, with its one creeple becoming Endangered. However, even Endangered creeples can still act as the starting point for the placement of new ones. Green places two Archetype creeples into Newborns.

As dispersal begins, White places his Archetype creeple into a hex on Alpha which is already occupied by a Black Flyer. This triggers a “herbivore contest,” in which the two players determine which species is the more efficient herbivore. White wins the contest, since his Archetype has one green cube and the Black Flyer has none. It should be noted that under most circumstances, Archetype species cannot prey upon non-Archetypes, but any non-Archetype can prey upon an Archetype. The Black Flyer can therefore take the carnivore position in a hex occupied by a White Archetype herbivore. Since there is no carnivore species already in the hex, Black moves the Flyer into that position.

Green places his Archetype creeples into two hexes on Gamma. He would like to move onto the Delta craton, contesting Orange control of the area, but he realizes that his Archetype isn’t as efficient as an herbivore, so he decides not to push the confrontation yet. At the end of the turn, the two stranded Green Archetypes, one in the mountain hex and one out at sea, both die.

Interim Comments

Honestly, the game is just getting started. Several players seem to be aiming for different strategies – White is developing his Archetype toward sentience, Black is trying to develop multiple species, and Orange is grabbing for as much territory as possible.

Once every player has two or three species in play, the board is likely to get very crowded, but for now everyone is just jockeying for advantage. Next time I’ll describe the next few turns, in which it should become more obvious who’s doing well.