 Fish on species board, with adjacent trait cards | |
| Designers | Dominic Crapuchettes [1] |
|---|---|
| Illustrators | Catherine Hamilton |
| Publishers | North Star Games |
| Publication | 2020 |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Playing time | 60–90 minutes |
| Age range | 12+ |
| Website | www.northstargames.com/products/oceans |
Oceans is a nature-themed strategy board game published in 2020 by North Star Games. [1] It is a game in the Evolution series. [2]
The game's development was funded via a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. [2]
Unlike its predecessor Evolution, in which players execute their turns in shared phases, in Oceans players take individual turns to create species by assembling trait cards. [3] These creatures are released into an aquatic ecosystem where they must obtain food and avoid becoming prey to other creatures. [3] These are represented by boards that can hold nine fish (each fish is a "population token"). During the game, the creature may evolve defenses against predators, and predators may evolve tactics to circumvent those defenses. [3] Up to three trait cards can be used to evolve a species. [4] The ecosystems are represented by one reef board and an ocean board with three zones filled with fish tokens.
Each turn, the player uses one card to either evolve an extant species, to create a new one, or to migrate fish from one ocean box to another. [4] They then feed one of their species, either by "grazing from the reef" ("foraging"), preying on another species ("attacking") [4] or passively from the ocean ("gaining"). Finally, each species controlled by the player is aged, with one fish token removed from its board and added to the players score pile. [4] The player then draws cards to fill a complement of four for their hand. [4] If a species does not have sufficient fish on its board, it becomes extinct. If it exceeds the nine fish limit, it has overpopulated the ocean and half the fish tokens are removed from its board. [4]
When the first ocean zone is emptied of fish, it results in a Cambrian Explosion. [4] During this stage of the game, on each turn each player uses two trait cards, ages species twice, and can play cards from a 'The Deep' deck of 89 unique cards. [4] The latter have a cost that must be paid in fish tokens from the player's score pile. [4] The 'Reef' variant of the game dispenses with "The Deep" deck and uses two scenario cards instead. [4]
The end of the game is reached once all ocean zones are depopulated of fish. [4] The player with the most collective fish tokens in their score pile and on their species boards wins the game. [4]
The company consulted with Brian O'Neill, a marine biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, to establish the scientific background for the game. [1]
Illustrations for the reef and surface cards were created by Catherine Hamilton, [2] and the box art was designed by Hamilton and Guillaume Ducos. Cards in "The Deep" were illustrated by various artists. [2]
In a review for Science News , Mike Denison states that the game's design "masterfully translates the wonders and complexities of marine ecology to a tabletop setting" and the gameplay results in a "(mostly) scientifically accurate experience". [1] However, it is possible to create a species with biologically conflicting traits, such as having both a parasitic and symbiotic relationship with another species. [1]
In a review for Board Game Quest, Tony Mastrangeli described the pace of play as a "slow build up", and slower than its predecessor Evolution. [4] Once the Cambrian Explosion phase is reached, the pace is much faster. [4] The Reef variant is stated to be "excellent as a family game". [4]
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy.
Deep-sea fish are animals that live in the darkness below the sunlit surface waters, that is below the epipelagic or photic zone of the sea. The lanternfish is, by far, the most common deep-sea fish. Other deep sea fishes include the flashlight fish, cookiecutter shark, bristlemouths, anglerfish, viperfish, and some species of eelpout.
Moray eels, or Muraenidae, are a family of eels whose members are found worldwide. There are approximately 200 species in 15 genera which are almost exclusively marine, but several species are regularly seen in brackish water, and a few are found in fresh water.
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A deep sea community is any community of organisms associated by a shared habitat in the deep sea. Deep sea communities remain largely unexplored, due to the technological and logistical challenges and expense involved in visiting this remote biome. Because of the unique challenges, it was long believed that little life existed in this hostile environment. Since the 19th century however, research has demonstrated that significant biodiversity exists in the deep sea.
The term deep sea creature refers to organisms that live below the photic zone of the ocean. These creatures must survive in extremely harsh conditions, such as hundreds of bars of pressure, small amounts of oxygen, very little food, no sunlight, and constant, extreme cold. Most creatures have to depend on food floating down from above.
Coral reef fish are fish which live amongst or in close relation to coral reefs. Coral reefs form complex ecosystems with tremendous biodiversity. Among the myriad inhabitants, the fish stand out as colourful and interesting to watch. Hundreds of species can exist in a small area of a healthy reef, many of them hidden or well camouflaged. Reef fish have developed many ingenious specialisations adapted to survival on the reefs.
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Marine habitats are habitats that support marine life. Marine life depends in some way on the saltwater that is in the sea. A habitat is an ecological or environmental area inhabited by one or more living species. The marine environment supports many kinds of these habitats. Marine habitats can be divided into coastal and open ocean habitats. Coastal habitats are found in the area that extends from as far as the tide comes in on the shoreline out to the edge of the continental shelf. Most marine life is found in coastal habitats, even though the shelf area occupies only seven percent of the total ocean area. Open ocean habitats are found in the deep ocean beyond the edge of the continental shelf.
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