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Review Summary: Ursuppe is an excellent strategic-exception game with the funniest of themes smoothly tied in. I can’t recommend it highly enough to either casual or hardened gamers.
What you get: For your approximately US$ 49.95 (it is substantially cheaper in Europe) you get a medium-sized boardgame for two to four players lasting approximately one hour and a half. It contains the game board, 7 amoebas per player in four different colours, 33 gene cards, 11 environment cards, 55 foodstuff cubes per colour, beads for damage points and biological points, scoring markers, 2 dice, 4 reference cards and of course the rule book.
The story: At the dawn of life on earth, inside the ‘primordial soup’ (a rough translation of ‘Ursuppe’), tribes of amoebas try to survive and evolve. Which amoebas will prove the most cunning, versatile and adaptive to their environment’s challenges?
The rules in brief: The 3 or 4 players control a group of amoebas each. The objective is to be the highest-ranking player at the end of the game.
After the initial set up the game is played in rounds, each consisting of six distinct phases where players play, depending on the phase and their relative position on the scoring board, either from first to last or last to first. The phases are:
-Movement and feeding, where the amoebas move and try to feed (they excrete if they feed and receive damage if they don’t),
-Environment and gene defects, where the direction of the drift is set and the ozone layer change might force amoebas to lose some of their mutations,
-New genes, where players purchase genes for their tribe, enhancing their abilities to survive,
-Cell division, where amoebas multiply,
-Death, where injured amoebas die, and finally
-Scoring, where each player scores according to the number of amoebas one has on the board and the number of genes on his hands.
This being the rules in brief, I will not discuss the exact mechanics of any of the phases, the bottom line though is that they are very simple to learn and understand, without being daunting or voluminous. Their funny aspects greatly contribute to the immediate understanding (such as the fact that an amoeba always excretes its own colour but can never eat it, thus an amoeba is eating and actively searching differently coloured amoebas excretions!), and the colour coding works efficiently. The multitude of genes, in addition to their quantitative scarcity, creates interesting combinations and player interactions.
The strong points: Component quality is very good, as it traditionally is from Doris & Frank. The wooden amoebas (that need some hammering, mind you) might appear childish to some, but to me it is exactly what the game needed: simple pieces that pass the message on an otherwise crowded board. The fact that the board is grey greatly facilitates play as, with all the cubes and amoebas on it, it becomes very bright and colourful during the game. I suggest a thorough counting of the cubes, since the existence of a surplus is almost guaranteed, again to the enjoyment of messy gamers. If the extras don’t get separated, some players will be at an unfair advantage.
The gene cards are printed frontally with the German gene names in colour and on the back with the English names in black and white. It is an excellent cost-saving idea (not to mention that you don’t have to resort to web-translations).
If bought in Germany, the game comes with the German rules only. As I understand it though, copies sent abroad include an English version of the rules. In any case, the official English translation is available for free at the Doris & Frank website, a translation I helped clear-up (I am only a fan, mind you, and in no way affiliated to Doris & Frank). Having done that, I am sure there are no discrepancies between the two language versions (or if there are, please notify them to me so that the rules are updated the soonest possible). The rules are crystal clear even on the exceptions the genes introduce, therefore there will be no rules-lawyering or time-wasting around the table.
On their content, I personally find the rules amazingly well thought of. Players having problems with abstract games look no further: Ursuppe is a very strongly themed game.
It shines when 4 players actually play, but even 3 players can make for an interesting session. It takes self-control not to indulge in heavy aggression from the beginning of the game thus limiting one’s chances to victory, since there are many ways an opponent can get back to you later on. Hardened gamers will enjoy the ‘think’ factor needed in order to maximize the profits from a particular position while simultaneously limiting the options of their opponents. The exceptions provided by the genes remind lightly of Cosmic Encounter, adding to the complexity. The game is not self-balancing and victory might not be artificially contested up to the last round as many other games force upon players. Nevertheless, exactly because of the richness of choices, the random factor and the very easy way the board can be manipulated, catching the leader is neither impossible nor frustrating, as long as one has an eye open for the right tactics at the right time. Ursuppe is all about timing and adaptability (and with that theme, it couldn’t have been otherwise).
Less conscious players will enjoy the theme as well as the laughs around the table. No matter how seriously one plays, one can’t but laugh when his amoebas eat his opponents’ amoebas’ excretions in order to survive.
The weak points: Ursuppe is one of my favourite games and I admit I can’t find particular weak points. Over-conservative gamers might be put off by the excretion-eating theme presented boldly, but maturely and neutrally (in my opinion).
I have read complains about gene-balance on the net, but I simply disagree since it is all tied to a gene’s cost.
Additionally, people enjoying non-aggressive games might be slightly disappointed. Without the game being about overagression, one’s amoeba tribe depends upon not only being in a better position itself, but doing so while actually screwing other players over, both on the board placement and the choice of genes.
Once again, I’d say that game satisfaction depends on the dynamics of the table. I have played the game both without paying too much attention to the moves, as well as playing as strategically as it can get: it was equally enjoyable both times because the same mindset was shared around the table.
Conclusion: I personally find Ursuppe a great game not only because of its varying strategies and the consequent non-existence of a ‘right way’ to win, but also because of the amazing fun factor due to the theme which blends excellently with the rules. The existence of an expansion (for which I have read only good words but do not own and have subsequently not playtested) provides for an extra added value incentive towards buying the game and enjoying it as much as possible.
