Dominant Species: The Card Game

About this board game

Dominant Species: The Card Game is a competitive card game for 2-6 players that plays in about 60 minutes. Set in 15,000 B.C. as a great ice age ends, it challenges players to help animal species adapt to a slowly changing Earth.

Players compete to become dominant across terrestrial and sea biomes, using six major animal classes: mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid, and insect. Clever card play can earn valuable victory points while animals use their Food Chain values and element icons to influence the struggle for control.

• Compete across ten of twelve different Biome cards during ten rounds.
• Play animal and Event Action cards, or pass, as the competition develops.
• Fight for six Element resource cards and work to suppress opposing animals.
• Advance on the Survival Track when dominance is achieved at a Tundra.

During each round, the starting player chooses whether to play one Action card or pass. Play continues clockwise until every player has passed consecutively or a player passes with an empty hand. The current Biome and Element cards are then scored, and players record their gains on the Victory Point Track.

Animals may shift from Healthy to Endangered and from Endangered to Extinct, while Event cards create powerful one-time or ongoing effects. After scoring, the played cards and current Biome are discarded, a new Biome appears, and players draw and possibly discard cards based on their Survival Track positions.

As the final descent of the ice age approaches, every point matters. In Dominant Species: The Card Game, the player with the most accumulated victory points at the end wins the struggle for supremacy.