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Primordial Soup (board game)
Encyclopedia
Primordial Soup is a board game
designed by Doris Matthäus & Frank Nestel and published by Z-Man Games
. It was first published in 1997
in Germany
by Doris & Frank under the name Ursuppe and this original version won 2nd prize in the 1998 Deutscher Spiele Preis
.
of primitive amoeba
drifting through the primordial soup. The player controls whether and how his amoebas move, eat and procreate using the 10 biological points which he receives each turn. A player may evolve his species by buying gene
cards, which give the amoebas abilities such as faster movement. The abilities are pictured on the gene cards, showing amoebas growing fins
, tentacles, spines
, etc.
A key feature of the game is its self-balancing ecosystem
. The food required by each amoeba is a mixture of the excrement of the other players' species. Food may become scarce and cause amoebas to starve, die and decompose into food. If one species becomes scarce, this will then cause problems for the other players, since their amoebas depend on all the other species to supply their food. Genes may mitigate this, for example by turning a species into a predator. However, this still requires some healthy prey to be available. Furthermore, the other players may react by turning their amoebas into predators themselves, growing spines for defense, or simply increase their procreation rate to offset the losses. The success of each strategy highly depends on the other players' actions as each species evolves to fill ecological niches.
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
designed by Doris Matthäus & Frank Nestel and published by Z-Man Games
Z-Man Games
thumbZ-Man Games is a company incorporated in 1999 in the USA to produce games. The headquarters is in Mahopac, New York, near New York City. It is named after its proprietor, Zev Shlasinger...
. It was first published in 1997
1997 in games
This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and table-top role-playing games published in 1997. For video and console games, see 1997 in video gaming.-Game awards given in 1997:...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
by Doris & Frank under the name Ursuppe and this original version won 2nd prize in the 1998 Deutscher Spiele Preis
Deutscher Spiele Preis
The Deutscher Spiele Preis is an important award for boardgames. It was started in 1990 by the German magazine "Die Pöppel-Revue", which collects votes from the industry's stores, magazines, professionals and game clubs. The results are announced every October at the Spiel game fair in Essen,...
.
Theme
Each player guides a speciesSpecies
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of primitive amoeba
Amoeba
Amoeba is a genus of Protozoa.History=The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757. Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape...
drifting through the primordial soup. The player controls whether and how his amoebas move, eat and procreate using the 10 biological points which he receives each turn. A player may evolve his species by buying gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
cards, which give the amoebas abilities such as faster movement. The abilities are pictured on the gene cards, showing amoebas growing fins
FINS
FINS is a network protocol used by Omron PLCs, over different physical networks like Ethernet, Controller Link, DeviceNet and RS-232C....
, tentacles, spines
Spine (zoology)
A spine is a hard, thorny or needle-like structure which occurs on various animals. Animals such as porcupines and sea urchins grow spines as a self-defense mechanism. Spines are often formed of keratin...
, etc.
A key feature of the game is its self-balancing ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
. The food required by each amoeba is a mixture of the excrement of the other players' species. Food may become scarce and cause amoebas to starve, die and decompose into food. If one species becomes scarce, this will then cause problems for the other players, since their amoebas depend on all the other species to supply their food. Genes may mitigate this, for example by turning a species into a predator. However, this still requires some healthy prey to be available. Furthermore, the other players may react by turning their amoebas into predators themselves, growing spines for defense, or simply increase their procreation rate to offset the losses. The success of each strategy highly depends on the other players' actions as each species evolves to fill ecological niches.
Objective
Each turn each species scores points based upon its population and genes. The game ends when a player reaches 42 points or when the last environment card is drawn. This usually happens after 5-10 rounds so the game lasts 1–2 hours.Equipment
- A game board with spaces representing the primordial soup, a scoring track, and a compass diagram.
- Two dice.
- 28 pegged discs representing amoebas, in four sets of different colors and shapes.
- 37 biological point tokens.
- 25 beads for marking damage.
- 55 foodstuff cubes in each color.
- 4 score markers.
- 33 gene cards.
- 11 environment cards which indicate the direction of drift and the thickness of the ozone layerOzone layerThe ozone layer is a layer in Earth's atmosphere which contains relatively high concentrations of ozone . This layer absorbs 97–99% of the Sun's high frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to the life forms on Earth...
. - Game rules and reference sheets.