We've seen oodles of games set in or around America's National Parks and there's been no shortage of games set in one of the many Wildlife Reserves in Africa. India not so much. Which is where Blu Encore's Biomes of Nilgiris comes in. Its setting is the Nilgiris Biosphere, a massive forest Reserve in the south of India that incorporates the Mudumalai National Park, Mukurthi National Park, Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu; Nagarhole National Park, Bandipur National Park, both in Karnataka; Silent Valley National Park, Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary and Karimpuzha Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala.
Biomes of Nilgiris is a game for 2-4 players. You play as one of eight characters (scientist, explorer, forest ranger, wildlife activist, animal whisperer, photographer, nature lover or bird watcher), each of whom has their own special ability. Tho' there's a board, that mostly just accommodates the scoring and other tracks and the cards on display. You're actually mostly playing on what is, in effect, a modular board made up of biome cards. Each game starts off with six of these (a Field Station base and five others) but when you take an explore action you'll add more and so expand the modular board over which your character's meeple will be moving. Cards added through exploration are initially placed face-down; you need to move your meeple to that location in order to flip and reveal it.
You'll be collecting various tokens and placing them in your 'journal', where there are set collection bonuses to be earned by collecting rows where all the tokens are different. A study action lets you clear tokens from your journal into your individual supply so that you can spend them; for example, to activate equipment cards for their points value and powerful single-use or ongoing effects.
When you travel to a biome with the icon that matches a species card in your hand, you can 'discover' that species and add it to your tableau, where it will score you points and/or earn you more tokens. Ultimately tho' you'll need to be taking actions to conserve species or biomes: again spending a specific mix of tokens to score points and possibly advancing your token on a sustainability track. You can only conserve species that you've previously 'discovered' to your tableau, and conserving biomes is a race between the players because it's first come first conserved. As players increase their 'sustainability' rating through the course of the game, they reap bonuses for hitting particular milestones and there'll be end-game bonus points for the player at the top of the track.
There are objective cards that are randomly selected at the start, so vary between games. These can direct players' focus because they give points to the player who ends the game ahead on the objective's criteria (for example, conserving the most mammals) but the rewards for these aren't so great that they dictate strategy: you can build a winning score without mithering overly over the objectives.
With Biomes of Nilgiris, designers Sidhant Chand and Shelly Sinha have created a compelling game that has a distinct arc. In the early game, you can expect players to focus mostly on exploration and on adding tokens to their journals and maybe activating their equipment to increase the effectiveness of subsequent actions. The game shifts gear, however, as the Level 1 cards are replaced with Level 2, and players increasingly focus their actions on points-scoring conservation.
Often with nature-themed games, it's the artwork that contributes much of the appeal. Biomes of Nilgiris is no exception. The Nilgiris Biosphere is home to a huge variety of species of flora and fauna, and it's impressive how well the vibrant art of Sanjana Singh brings them to life. This is also a game where players are likely to leave the table knowing more than when they sat down. In particular, there's a lot of educational content on conservation issues and on the extent to which particular species are endangered.
Shown here on Board's Eye View is a preview prototype of Biomes of Nilgiris produced ahead of the game's upcoming funding campaign on Kickstarter. Click here to check it out. And we're excited to see that there will be some mini-expansions included that will further add to the game's replayability...