Darwin\'s Journey · English edition · (2023)
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There is one really good idea in this game: the workers grow and evolve throughout the game by gaining colored seals making them able to take more and different powerful actions. Other than that I found it a fiddly, overproduced worker placement game with some kickstarter sickness. I had trouble learning the game from the rulebook and could not on my first play/s find out how each piece interlocks with other game systems. (Caveat: this arrived at the same time as Revived and Distilled and may have suffered in contrast) Needs more plays. Rating 7.5 2026 After 5 plays. I backed this late at night during the pandemic. And I shouldn't have. Me and the modern Euro are not the best of friends. This is a complex worker placement game that thematically tracks Darwin's Journey through the Galapagos Isles. The key idea here seems to be that you "grow" your workers by giving them more color seals to allow them to go to spots that require more of those seals or make them more versatile. This is the thing that made me back the game. But this is embedded in such a variety of systems that for me it never becomes a cohesive whole but rather disjointed tracks and mechanisms that accidentally sometimes lead to super-turns with lots of bonus actions. I consistently lose against the bot as well and I cannot imagine having to teach this, the people, I play with when I actually play other than solo, wouldn't enjoy this amount of rules getting thrown at them. This game is just not for me. This last game was on BGA where I had hoped the automation might help me enjoy this more but it was the opposite. I was unable to track what the automa was doing and lost even worse than usual. I have fallen out of love with this type of rules-complex modern euro. I have several others I also don't get along with. Rating 5
| Year | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Designers | Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone |
| Artists | Kristiaan der Nederlanden, Paolo Voto |
| Publishers | Portal Games, Korea Boardgames, CMON Global Limited, MINDOK, Gémklub, 黑城堡桌游 Black Castle Games, Ghenos Games, Grok Games, CrowD Games, 株式会社ケンビル (KenBill), Skellig Games, ThunderGryph Games, TCG Factory, Blackrock Games, Hachette Boardgames Benelux |
| Players | 1–4 |
| Time | 60–120 min |
| Status | Owned |
| BGG Rating | 8.0 |
| Categories | Travel, Exploration |
| Mechanics | Set Collection, Variable Set-up, Point to Point Movement, Contracts, Solo / Solitaire Game, Pick-up and Deliver, Ownership, Worker Placement, Turn Order: Claim Action, Worker Placement, Different Worker Types |
| BGG Rank | 90 |
| Complexity | 3.89 / 5 |
| Language | No necessary in-game text |
| Segmentation | SELL_PILE |
|---|---|
| Box size | L |
| My category | Exploration |
| My mechanic | Worker Placement, Different Worker Types |
| Date | Location | Duration | Qty | Players | Scores | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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2026-01-15 | Board Game Arena | – | 1 | Yashima | -16.00 | |
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2024-11-09 | Board Game Arena | – | 1 | Yashima | -94.00 | |
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2024-06-18 | At home | – | 1 | Bot 🤖, Yashima | 59.00, 103.00 | 103.00 |
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2024-06-17 | At home | – | 1 | Bot 🤖, Yashima | 37.00, 137.00 | 137.00 |
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2023-03-22 | At home | – | 1 | Bot 🤖, Yashima | –, – |