Darwinning! Review

Darwinning! from Dragon Dawn Productions puts you somewhere on the food chain trying to survive and evolve your species. It bills itself as a trick taking game but it is is not your ordinary trick taking game. Players don't need to follow suit in order to win. This follows poker rules. You can put down a single card of any suit or you can play pairs, straights, flushes, etc of any suit and these will trump the lead card. When you win a trick, you get to keep one of your cards and add it to your species for it's habitat, ability, or food chain stature. At the end of each round, you'll gather food for your population and potentially eat other players that are lower than you are if you need the food. After 3 rounds, players will tally up their points based on where they are on the food chain and the types of cards on their player boards. Whoever has the most points wins.

The Good: Trick taking games have never been my cup of tea. I find them extremely confusing to understand but adding in poker rules gives Darwinning! a layer that I really enjoyed. I like that you aren't forced to follow suit to win. This adds an extra level of determining when you should play your higher cards because you could potentially play high cards and still lose out on them. It's hugely beneficial to go last for that reason. I also really like that you aren't necessarily going to lose by drawing a card thats lower on the food chain. You start with a slight disadvantage but it's not unmanageable.

The Okay: There are a lot of elements at play in this game. There's a lot of different symbols on cards as well as on your player boards. You'll probably need to watch a video or two before you really understand how to play the game effectively. I would have liked to see player aids included in the box instead of constantly referring to the rulebook to figure some of them out.

The Not So Good: Speaking of rulebooks, this one was really tough to follow. The setup instructions were pretty vague, making you refer to pictures with limited text to get the game ready to go. It plays well once the flow has been situated but it's a struggle to get it started especially with players that aren't familiar with trick takers or poker.

Final Thoughts: I mentioned that I don't like trick takers. Darwinning! is an interesting outlier to that rule. It's more of a poker game with trick elements. Adding in modifications to your species to make them more capable of survival as the game goes is really unique and it provides a lot of strategy. I can definitely recommend this if you're someone who enjoys trick takers. There's a lot more in the box than it seems.

Thanks to Dragon Dawn Productions for providing me with a review copy.