Darwin's Journey

Darwin's Journey is a heavy strategy game from Simone Luciani (Barrage, Grand Austria Hotel, Tzolk'in) and Nestore Mangone (Stupor Mundi, Newton). It is a Eurogame which uses worker placement as the core mechanism. I used to be a diehard fan of heavy Eurogames. I thought that was the ultimate evolution form of boardgamers. Now I view heavy Eurogames quite differently. I tend to be skeptical, fearing disappointment. I don't want to play yet another convoluted resource conversion exercise, which is just a lot of work. It's not my kind of fun anymore. Darwin's Journey is a heavy Eurogame that took me by surprise. The moment I finished my first game, I wanted to play again. I was eager to explore it more. 

One thing a little different about the workers in this worker placement game is they are all knowledge workers. They will gain knowledge in different areas (represented by seals in different colours). Some actions can only be performed by workers with specific knowledge, for example a worker with two green seals and one blue seal. So upskilling your workers is something you have to plan for. When their skill levels reach certain thresholds, you gain some benefits. Gosh this sounds like the kind of thing I say to bosses in my day job being a corporate trainer.

Your big picture goal in the game is to develop the Theory of Evolution. You sail, you explore the Galapagos islands, you collect animal and plant samples. Managing your funds is important. You can make money by submitting samples to the museum. You need money for placing workers. Some spots allow multiple players to place workers, but only the first worker is placed for free. The rest all need to pay. Money is tight. Another thing which you will spend money on is unlocking new worker placement spots. During game setup, some spots are set up but are locked. These are more powerful spots. If you are first to unlock a spot, you marker it with your colour. This spot belongs to you and you can always use it for free, but if anyone else wants to use it, they have to pay you. Money again. Yes, scientific research requires much funding. 

This marks the journey of HMS Beagle, the ship Darwin was on. The game is played over five rounds, and at the end of each round, the HMS Beagle advances to the next checkpoint. Each player has his own ship. You can try to keep up with the HMS Beagle, or even overtake it. At the end of every round you can score points based on a specific criteria. The reason you want to stick close to Darwin is these bonus points are reduced if you are not with him or ahead of him. The three islands are where you can send explorers to collect animal and plant samples and other benefits. 

This 4x4 grid is the museum, with 16 spots for specimens. When you find a specimen and deliver it to the museum you can earn both money and knowledge, based on the row and column of that new specimen. Every still empty space in the same row or column gives you money. Every filled space gives you knowledge. At the end of the game, one large chunk of points comes from your progress in developing the Theory of Evolution. This is calculated based on the number of completed rows at the museum and your knowledge level. 

There are only five rounds in the game, and that feels so few! I couldn't wait to play the game again because I felt I had done too little, achieved too little. The game is a huge space with much to be done. When you make good progress in certain areas, they help you progress in other areas too. Many parts of the game are linked. I looked at my progress at the end of my first game and I said this sucked. I didn't know what kind of end-game score was considered good in a game of Darwin's Journey, but I could sense my score was atrocious. It was like going to a library and only browsing the children's section. Come on, I can do better than that! 

The fun part of the game is how to maximise your actions. You only have a handful of actions. The HMS Beagle advances every round, and this is a huge psychological pressure. How are you going to keep up? Should you try to? Or should you let go of this and focus on other ways of scoring points? It is impossible to do everything so you have to choose. You try to make your actions contribute towards multiple goals. For example one action in the game is to write letters. When you do this, you need to compete with others, but potentially you will get benefits at the end of every round. This indirectly saves some actions for you, because these benefits are automatic and do not require taking an action. Some actions in the game allow you to do more if you are willing to pay. If you can make sure you have some spare cash, you'll be performing two tasks with one action. There are missions in the game. If you complete them, they give you benefits in various areas, which is like allowing you to perform extra actions. There is so much work to do, and you want to align everything well so that you maximise your output. It is a challenge, and it is satisfying to pull off. Darwin's Journey is complex and takes time to learn, but it is a fun journey of discovery.