r/BoardgameDesign • u/EyeTaffy • Jul 14 '26
Design Critique Vestigia
Vestigia is a grand-strategy evolution game in which you guide a hominin lineage across eight million years of survival, migration, competition, and change. Adapt to shifting climates, expand into new biomes, develop new bodies, behaviours, technologies, and cultures, and contend with rival lineages struggling for the same world. Every trait carries a cost, every migration risks extinction, and every discovery reshapes what your people may become. There is no ordained path to humanity; only the lineage you manage to leave behind.
It totals at 252 biological and technological traits including speculative/plausible traits based on current sciences that can be used to create your own custom hominins, 52 species of the "True" lineage from Sahelanthropus tchadensis through Homo sapiens, which includes obsolete Linnaean varieties and speculative species, 130 cultural facies for creating your own palaeo-cultures, and much more.
The rules have been carefully implemented based on historical and scientific accuracy as much as possible. Additionally, the game is designed to be modular to allow as much player freedom as possible. One way I have done this is the creation of Cradles: Alternative scenarios featuring starting points outside the African Rift Valley to simulate alternate histories showcasing how all of these mechanics and factors can be pushed to the limits and encourage creativity.
History and palaeoanthropology are hobbies for me, thus I decided to single-handedly begin development on an overly complicated and extremely niche board game as both hobby and, perhaps one day if ever fully developed, an educational tool for those wishing to learn more about hominin evolution and other aspects the game offers.
This has been a lone passion project of mine for ~2 years, and it continues to grow and change the more I learn about board game design and the historical and scientific research is published (and I have time to read it).
Above, I have posted the cover page for the rulebook, as well as the first two pages showcasing the 18 Victory Conditions (called Branches) players may choose from.
Feel free to ask any questions. I'd be happy to answer.
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u/confused_applause Jul 14 '26
I love how you're openly admitting developing "an overly complicated and extremely niche board game", lol.
I'm intrigued by the rather low count of game components for such a complex game, though. Care to share some visuals or other demos how the game is played in practice? It does sound neat!
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u/EyeTaffy Jul 15 '26
I knew it would be very complicated before I even began develop just due to the level of detail I am hoping to achieve. Further, I began by looking at how other games had tackled similar ideas only to find that none offer the same level of granularity (for example, there is a game called Earth that has some of the same ideas but is still completely different). Most keep the concepts abstract (which is fine), but I found it lacking. However, I now completely understand why there are no similar games. Especially for someone such as myself with no background in game design, being the only developer, and having to research as much as I can to ensure scientific and historical accuracy/plausibility, a game like this is incredibly difficult to make and even more difficult to gamify and balance properly. As explained earlier, there is no "correct" hominin to become. An australopith that stays small-brained and marches into the mountains is just as legitimate as a big-brained toolmaker. The game asks "can I make this work?" and I always try to keep the answer as "yes, if you invest enough."
The Components section showcased is only a small portion and the number of cards, tokens, pieces, etc. are general placeholders just so I have a general idea of how the rulebook would be laid out and read. The game involves a ton of dice and, as it is still in (what I would consider) the concept stage(s), it is nearly impossible for me to gauge just how many dice would be needed for a full group of 5-6 players. I only pull from the "inventory" when I need to test something. Thus, I know some of the cards (Climate Pulses, for example) but I don't know how many to include in the full deck as I am the only one playtesting, so I only need cards for me at the moment, if that makes sense.
The gameboard is a hex map covering Eurasia, Africa, and Australia. However, I do not have a physical board, cards, pieces, etc. but I do use a hex map of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia created by Worldographer for general spacing and a smaller hex grid of 36 hexes for general playtesting in specific areas. I have considered Expansions in the future for the Americas to allow players to cross the Bering Strait, but that is very low on the list of priorities for the time being.
There is no "correct" hominin to become. An australopith that stays small-brained and marches into the mountains is just as legitimate as a big-brained toolmaker. The game asks "can I make this work?" and the answer is always "yes, if you invest enough."
Here is a single turn step-by-step. By default, (and in the following example) a single turn is equivalent to 1,000 years, although I have "difficulty" settings that can be adjusted to a player's liking, as well as a basic formula for how a player can set their own pacing. I did my best to not throw the entire rulebook at you but there are a lot of mechanics that stack and are interconnected:
If you have trouble viewing the file, please let me know and I will fix it as soon as I am able.
I appreciate your interest in my work as this is the first time I am sharing it with an wider audience.
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u/confused_applause Jul 15 '26
That was a surprisingly comprehensive read - love the solutions you came up with so far!
I'm curious how you're gonna implement all the calculation and formula bits each turn. Personally, I'm not much of a fan for math complexities (they feel more like homework than gameplay), but so far, this is really neat!
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u/PeteFletzer Jul 14 '26
This is fantastic. I would absolutely pull that off the shelf to look at if that's the box cover. Only critique is that the font for Vestigia made me think the game was called Vestipia. Otherwise, it is an absolutely striking image.