Primordial Soup — How to play

Grow your colony and acquire genes to earn evolution points. The highest score wins.

Learn by playing · Original rulebook (PDF)

Move and eat

Drift one space with the current for free, or swim for 1 BP with a random direction. Movement genes improve your control.

Then eat three nutrients of other colours: one of each with four players, or two of one colour and one of the other with three. Leave two of your own colour. If you cannot eat, take one injury instead.

Adapt to the environment

If your genes' total mutation sensitivity exceeds the ozone value, pay the difference in BP, give up genes, or combine both.

Buy genes

Genes give your whole colony new abilities. Open the gene pool to read their effects and costs. Keep BP for movement, division and environmental changes.

Grow your colony

Receive 10 BP, then spend 6 BP per new amoeba, beside one of yours. Genes can improve this.

Survive and score

Amoebas with two injuries die; eating does not heal injuries. Survivors and genes earn points automatically; the board's table shows how many.

The game ends at 42 points, or when the environment deck runs out. Highest score wins.

Using the board

Click an amoeba, then a highlighted destination. Use Swim for a dice roll and Done when you have finished buying genes or dividing. The action bar shows your available choices.

Open an owned gene for its full effect. Chat and Journal sit below the play area; their shortcuts take you there and back.