[Board/Tactical Game]: Primordial Soup, reviewed by ShannonA (5/4)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11109.phtml

Shannon Appelcline's Summary:

An elegant and fun simulation game, beautifully produced. Evolving amoebas! What more need be said?

Go to the full review for more information.

Post originally by Chris Taylor at 2005-02-23 10:57:24
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Thanks, Shannon, for another great review. I had originally passed on _Ursuppe_ due to the theme, but this review makes it sound really intriguing.

Again, our gaming group appreciates your thoroughness and especially the notated screenshots.

Post originally by Frank Branham at 2005-02-23 14:17:32
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Ursuppe has always been in my personal top 25 or so.

It definitely has the feel of the old Cosmic Encounters special powers, with the added twists of growing your powers over time, and occasionally having to lose powers. It is a trickier game than Shannon makes it out to be. The tactical choices are not hard, but the strategic choices in allocating your points is really tricky.

This is also one game where the expansion is very useful. It adds bits for a 5th and 6th player, and more wacky genes. The game seems to actually work better with 5 players, and the extra genes make for some very unusual strategies.

Z-Man actually did a very nice job in bringing the game over. I could not see any obvious differences in the two versions, save that their version has color art on the English side.

Moo,
Frank

Post originally by Eliahad at 2005-02-24 00:18:27
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Doesn't 42 seem appropriate, though? I mean, really, it is the ultimate answer to life, the univers and everything! I haven't played the game, I must admit, so I don't know how it affects the length of the game. Your review, however, makes me think it's something I'd like to try.

Post originally by Frank Nestel at 2005-02-25 11:14:02
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I know "Game of Life". Hey I knew it in the 1970s, when I did not have access to a computer. I spent half of my day on the table hand simulating patterns and half of the day in the woods getting more wooden bits for the hand simulation.

Apart from that early love I didn't and still do not see to much in similar between Ursuppe and Game of Life. But if you think so :-)

Post originally by Shannon Appelcline at 2005-02-25 15:39:01
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<i>Apart from that early love I didn't and still do not see to much in similar between Ursuppe and Game of Life.</i>

It's that they both model the life and death of cellular organisms based largely on the presence of neighbors.

Life is a very simple simulation: if an organism has 3-4 neighbors, it lives (if I have my numbers right).

Ursuppe has a complex but at least thematically similar simulation: if an organism has close neighbors it's more likely to live because they'll be outputting food that it can eat; conversely if an organism ends up with no neighbors (of different colors) it's almost definitely destined to die.

Shannon