Players: 2-4*
Time: 60+ minutes*
Difficulty: 5 (of 10)

* One set allows two players to play; two sets allows 2-4. The gamelength is a bit over 60 minutes for 2 players but can dramatically crank up to a few hours with 4 players.

The Components

Each set of Nature of the Beast comes with 140 cards, laid out in decks for two players.

Cards: The cards are generally quite attractive. They're printed on medium-weight glossy card stock. Each features colorful art that in some cases is cartoony, but nevertheless is enjoyable and humorous. This combines really well with the fun theming in the game. You're playing armies of animals. Thus, for example the forest deck includes the prickly porcupine, the resourceful otter, and "Abraham" the eagle, while there's fuzzy bunnies and family dogs in the suburban deck. I'm not a big fan of funny animals, but these animals are cool.

Each players' cards actually includes two decks: a troops deck and a tricks deck. The troops deck is full of animals, including some leaders and some legends, while the tricks deck is more varied, including humans, items, leaders, locations, and actions. One of my minor pet peeves about the card designs is that none of the card type names are actually printed on the cards. Fortunately each one has a slightly different layout and coloring; an experienced player will have zero problem distinguishing them, but it'll be an obstacle for a new player. (The two decks of cards have different backs, so no problem there.)

Generally there is a huge amount of information portrayed on the different cards. The troop cards are the busiest with: name, habitat, animal size, special movement, three traits (combat, clout, cunning), overall rank, movement vectors, and special text. Meanwhile items have costs, locations have target numbers and habitats, etc. Fortunately good design work has been done to make the various, different statistics easy to distinguish and relatively intuitive.

Overall the cards are attractive, well-themed, and pretty easy to use.

Rules: A small, 44-page black & white rulebook. The rulebook is relatively well organized, with lots of examples, and variants. There's also a special section on each card type.

Gamebox: A double tuckbox, which is the only place where the components of the game really fall down. There's no way to keep your two decks separate, and the cards barely fit in anyways. I always keep my original gameboxes, but this is one where I'm pretty tempted to throw it out because it's relatively obnoxious.

On the whole I love the theming of Nature of the Beast and think it's well carried in these cards. Beyond that the component quality is average and the utility is good. With an emphasis toward the theming I've given Nature of the Beast a full "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The object of Nature of the Beast is to build an army of critters.

Setup: Each player selects a set of cards which is made up of two decks: tricks and troops.

Each player also selects his starting Favor and Fury, which must be the same number between 0 and 9. Favor is good, because you use it to pay for items, while Fury is bad, because if it gets too high you're out of the game. So you must arrange a balance.

Each player takes three tricks and places three troops face-down in his "pen".

The Playing Area. Each player has their own playing area, which is a 3x3 grid ("the field"), allowing for the placement of 9 cards; you must eventually fill in those 9 spaces in order to win. In front of that a player has his "pen", which is a 1x3 grid where new troops are placed. They start out face-down and must be turned face-up before they can be recruited.

Order of Play: During his turn a player steps through two phases: preparation and actions.

Preparation: A player starts off his turn by turning up 0-3 of the troops in his pen. Most troops just show various critters, some of them "legends" who are particularly powerful critters. However some troop cards may be "leaders". These turn a regular troop into a leader, and if you reveal one you immediately place another troop on top of it.

(Animals in the pen may always be discarded as a free action.)

Afterward the player then draws 0-3 Trick cards, based (inversely) on how many troops he flipped up.

Actions: Now a player enters his main phase when he can take three actions from a long list:

Recruit Animal. A face-up troop in your pen is recruited by using animals with enough "clout" to equal ot exceed the troop's "rank". Troops in the field may be "tilted" (turned sideways) to recruit a new animal, while other troops in the pen may be discarded.

When you have enough clout to match the troop's rank, he then moves forward into the field from the pen. To do this he must follow one of his "vectors". Each animal displays some subset of the 8 cardinal directions as vectors. They control where he can move. In the case of recruitment there has to be a free space available in one of the troops forward vectors or he can't be recruited at all!

Whenever a space opens up in the pen (due to recruiting or discarding) it's immediately filled with a new face-down troop.

Move Animal. An untilted animal can move one space in the field to an open space within its vectors.

Untilt Animal. A tilted animal can be untilted.

Dismiss Animal. An animal in the field may be discarded by tilting an animal of higher rank. (You might do this if your animals' vectors don't otherwise allow movement in your field.)

Defer Recruit. You can shuffle a recruit in the pen back into the draw deck if you can't use them now and want to use them at a future time.

Declare Battle. You can start a battle with an untilted animal.

Draw Additional Tricks. You can draw a trick card.

Play Cards: Besides taking actions in the main phase of your turn, you can also play cards. Most of the time this does not take an action, but some cards do have special cost noted, either an action cost, a card cost (meaning you must discard tricks), or both. In addition, each cards tends to have a special power, and many of these can be used on your turn. Again, this is often a free action, but sometimes has a cost.

Actions. These are the most common type of card. They have some instantaneous effect. Some are played on your turn, some on your opponents' turns, some in the regular order of play, some during combat. Examples include: "Appeasement" (which reduces Fury and Favor) and "No One's Looking ..." (which lets you move a tilted troop).

Items. These cards are placed on troops for a cost in Favor. An example is the "Hidden Camera". You tilt its troop to look at an opponent's tricks hand.

Humans. These cards are placed to the side of your field, up to 3 humans total. Each has a requirement you must meet before you can play it. An example is the "Bodyguard" who requires 6+ Favor and can be tilted at the cost of 1 Favor to substitute the guard into a battle for a troop. Humans are untilted at the start of your turn if you still meet their requirement.

Locations. These cards may be placed on a space in your field. To do so you must be able to match the rank of the location with animals who can reach the space where you want to play with their vectors. An example is the "Deserted Playground" (rank 8) which gives a troop defending at the location a bonus in combat.

Dark Nature Cards. Some cards and special powers are labeled "dark nature". They may only be used if you have a Fury of 5+.

Battles: A battle occurs when you choose (and tilt) one of your troops to declare an attack on a troop of another player. You then match the combat values of the two animals. The players now have the opportunity to go back and forth playing cards which can influence the battle.

Based playing cards for their effect, there are two other options than can be undertaken in this phase:

• Legends are better in combat. You can discard a trick to give them a +1.
• You can call for allies. In a multiplayer game you can get untilted troops in the front rows of your opponents to help. You can always have your own Troops help if they're untilted and one of the primary combatants is within their vectors. Each ally gives a +1 to combat.

Winning the Game: The real goal of the game is to fill the 9 spaces of your field with animals.

You can also lose if your Fury hits 10.

Alternatively, there can be a tie if neither player has enough troops left to win.

Relationships to Other Games

Nature of the Beast is a customizable card game. This genre is a spin-off of collectible card games. Like those CCGs, customizable games feature lots of unique cards with special powers. You can customize your own decks, but you don't have to buy random sets of cards to do so. Instead customizable card games come in large packs that give you everything. In this case, there's City vs. Suburb and Farm vs. Forest.

Like most CCGs, Nature of the Beast features head-to-head combat. Unlike most it can be played by more than two people and it has a really heavy tactical basis that requires much more thoughtful play than your typical CCG. (I'm vaguely reminded of the Vampire-based game Jihad, but it's been ten years since I played that, so I'm not sure if it really had the heavier tactical basis that I now ascribe to it.)

The Game Design

Overall, Nature of the Beast has a lot of great game-design elements. As I said the tactical basis of the game is strong. By having a large set of actions to choose among you feel like you're making important, independent decisions.

A lot of the play is also very puzzle-oriented, as is true in the best tactical games. This particularly centers around figuring out how to fill your field, based upon the powers of your Troops and their movement vectors.

I really can't stress enough how much this tactical play improves and changes what could have otherwise been a plain CCG. Most CCGs seem to place a lot of their clever "gameplay" in the deck construction aspect. Because of all the tactical options of Nature of the Beast you have a whole different (and deeper) sort of game.

The multiplayer aspect of Nature of the Beast is interesting, but ultimately somewhat lacking. It's nice to be able to attack any player and the ability to ally is reminescent of older American classics like Cosmic Encounter. However the interaction is somewhat limited, and it really extends the game. This is because what's a clever back-and-forth in two-player play becomes an extended game of "take that" with multiple players, where a leader rises up, only to be beat down by his opponents. Our two-player game took a bit more than an hour and our four-player game took about four hours (which I've been told is very high). Multiple plays would doubtless pull that down due to improved familiarity with the game and its systems, but I still don't particularly suggest 3+-player play unless you really like American games like Illuminati and Spammers which have similar, slow "take that" play.

Nature of the Beast is an independently developed game, and as with many in that category, I think it has some sharp edges. In particular, the combat feels a bit all-or-nothing to me, and sometimes I felt like it was just delaying things until people maxed out their Fury. However, that's the sort of thing that I could only assess with a lot more plays.

On the whole, I think that Nature of the Beast is a great entrant into the CCG field. I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

Nature of the Beast is a customizable (but not collectible) card game about the war between animal armies. If you like CCGs and you're looking for something with more tactical meat I suggest Nature of the Beast. It should particularly appeal to fans of American classics from Cosmic Encounter to Illuminati, because it shares much the same style of gameplay as those luminaries.

If your store of choice doesn't carry Nature of the Beast, check otu nobthegame.com.

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