FallCon - A Cornucopia of Gaming

Habitat was first published in 2008 by Valley Games Inc. It is now in its 2nd edition. (This post was originally published on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Habitat:

• Designed by: Elliot Hogg
• Published by: Valley Games Inc.
• Number of players: 2-6
• Playing time: 30 min
• Player ages: 8+

A Quick Overview

In the Northern forests, you create a Habitat and build a diverse ecosystem consisting of resources, complex organisms and deadly predators of the forests.

Your habitat can consist of multiple food chains and a variety of wildlife. The winner is the one with the most biologically diverse ecosystem.

Game Play

There are two game phases in Habitat. The first is the growth phase that occurs simultaneously. The second phase is the event phase where each player takes a turn to play an Event card (which affects ecosystems) or exerts Territoriality.

Events range from seasons (Spring/Winter) to natural disasters (Wildfire, Pollution, etc.) Each player tries to attract a diverse ecosystem consisting of cards numbered from 1 to 8.

The winner is the one that has an ecosystem with at least one card numbered from 1 to 8.

Observations

Disclaimer: This game was provided as a sample game by Valley Games Inc.

I have played Habitat a few times now and I kind of like it. It is a card game and it can be played very quickly though we found our games taking about 30-45 minutes.

There is a lot of “luck” involved in this type of game because of the card draw. The goal is to get a numbered set of cards from 1 to 8. This is a little difficult to do as there are only three “8″ value cards (Cougar, Black Bear, Grizzly Bear).

There are also three “Wolves” cards which are numbered “7*” with the exception that if you have two of these distributed along your food chains, they count as BOTH “7″ and “8″ value cards.

The idea of the game is to build a habitat consisting of resources (eggs, plants, fruits and berries, etc.) which have a value of “1″ and add animals that subsist on them. You can only add to a food chain an organism of a higher number or, thematically, an organism that feeds on the item below it.

It is a nice concept and the cards are lavishly illustrated giving you the feel of actually nurturing a habitat. I have played this game with 2 and 3 players and I prefer playing it 3 players.

The designer took pains to make the ecosystem building process thematic and I appreciate that. I think younger children would enjoy a nature lesson that these cards provide.

It is a little more complicated than a game such as For Sale.

Happy gaming.

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Valley Games Inc. sent me a package a couple of weeks ago containing a selection of games. I was excited to get the games and write about them. Here is a short video that I made about the games in the package.

Please enjoy:

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(Originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Instead of writing a review, I thought I would put up a video of the boardgames that I took photos of last year. You will recognize most of the boardgame photos as the ones that I used for the reviews.

A few exceptions are games like Torres and Attika which I have not yet reviewed.

Please enjoy and thanks for reading!

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When we look at our registration numbers to date, one word comes to mind: WOW!

With 147 registrants and counting, this year has by far surpassed expectations as well as past records for pre-registration. In fact, with over a month left to go, we feel pretty comfortable in predicting that we'll break our online pre-registration numbers from last year which was 162. As a result, we've secured some extra gaming space on the 2nd floor of Marlborough Community Centre so there should be tons of space even if we break our past attendance records (~250).

Truth is we'd love to smash that record and with your help there's no doubt in our mind that we'll succeed. Over the next couple weeks, we'll be putting up posters and pamphlets in as many community centers and local game stores as we possibly can. Of course being based out of Calgary, we can't hit all the stores and halls in Edmonton, Regina and Medicine Hat. Not to mention all the elevator lobbies, community bulletin boards and work lunch rooms you may have access to on a daily basis. So here's a call out to those of you who want to be part of our guerrilla marketing campaign:

Help us make FallCon the best worst-kept secret of the gaming community!

Please download our poster and pamphlet, print and place them wherever you think a gamer like yourself might see/find them. And if you happen to know any gamers in your group who haven't registered yet, don't hesitate to use our referral link in the top right corner of our website.

PS: When I wrote this post, there were only 34 slots left in the auction so if you want to sell games this year, make sure you've submitted them through our online auction manager.

Jasen
 
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