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We’re not going to be around forever.
Sorry, that was a bit of a downer. Let’s take a different approach. There’s a lot that we humans do right. We invented board games, for instance. Good job, humans. And sometimes we’re nice to each other. Cookies are good too, and we’ve made some decent movies. In a lot of other ways, however, we are spectacularly dim, with a bit of a fondness for war and nuclear weapons and poisoning the planet, and therefore the clock ticks against us. One day, our race will be gone. Yeah, I know, still a downer. Never mind, it’s great news for the animals!
In Natera: New Beginning, you play as a sentient and intelligent animal tribe, exploring and controlling areas abandoned in a bright, post-humanity world.
With the help of your unique tribe leader and your explorers, you will explore, build authority, and take control of four distinct areas. Doing so will unlock new, more powerful tiles and allow you to establish settlements to further cement your presence. Improvements with human science will unlock powerful bonuses on a tech tree. Collecting the most venture points after four seasons will prove you are the animal tribe that adapted the best to the new Natural Era.
The game includes 150+ basic and advanced exploration cards featuring discoveries, improvements, science, and forty unique specialist cards, allowing each animal tribe to navigate and explore different strategies every single game.
You’ve got four seasons (rounds) in which to lead your furry people out into the world and hopefully adapt the best out of all the species to your new environment. Whichever collective of creatures accumulates the most Venture Points will win, You’ll have to get exploring, and claim back what those stupid humans left behind (and for the love of all decency, I beg you my lovely animals, do not pick up our bad habits – the planet has seen enough soap operas and politicians thank you very much). How do you earn Venture Points? Funny you should ask, I was about to tell you. There’s several ways to earn, by having Authority over Areas, Claims achieved, building settlements, discovering new sciences, and by cards played. This indicates plenty of strategies and variety for achieving success.
A positive buzz is generating around Natera. Word is that there’s plenty of replayability here owing to a changeable board and a card deck that’s large enough so that it will take a couple of playthroughs before you see each one once. Visually the art is on point and this applies to every aspect of the game design – the cards, the board, the box are all very appealing.
Also, while it shares an initial look with Everdell, Natera is actually a fair bit heavier than that, although the pair do share some mechanics in common, namely worker placement and resource management – as well as the cute but intelligent animal theme -, with plenty of decisions along the way for how best to balance the two. If you’re looking for gameplay comparisons then Terraforming Mars or Dune Imperium may be a closer match. Thematically very different, then, but with plenty of meat on the bones. You’ll be looking at making some vital decisions that will affect how the rest of your game plays out. For example, which tribe should you choose at the start, bearing in mind that each has their own specialty and behaviour? Which bonus on your tech tree should you select? This is important, as some levels of your tree will have limited branches to follow. I can already see the result of these choices: I almost won this time, I wonder if I’d made a couple of different decisions, will I win another go…
Natera: A New Beginning is on its way to Kickstarter soon. Click this link and sign up to be notified: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nateranewbeginning/natera-new-beginning
And do yourself a favour, follow the team on Instagram and get a closer look at the excellent artwork: https://www.instagram.com/natera_new_beginning/