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Andre, Brian, 2007. [Review of Bone Wars, Zygote Games]. Palaeontologia Electronica Vol. 10, Issue 1, R1; 4pp.1.6MB;http://palaeo-electronica.org/paleo/2007_1/books/bone_wars.htm

Bone Wars

Reviewed by Brian Andres

Zygote Games$19.95

Bone Wars ©2005Zygote games, is a uniquegame from any point ofview. Taxonomy cardgames fall into threebroad categories. Thereare the games played onthe standard 52 card playing decks, the massivecollecting card games (CCG’s for short), and thecard games that lie intermediate between the twoto which Bone Wars belongs. A 99 cent deck ofplaying cards cannot be beat for value, but thereare only so many strategies can be employed forany given game and play is pretty similar betweenhands. At the other end of the spectrum are theCCG’s that have an almost infinite number of strat-egies as a result of their having literally hundredsof cards and a system of rules that change overtime. However, the CCG’s are usually sold in packsof about 10 cards requiring a considerable invest-ment before you have a competitive deck, muchtime must be put building your decks before playcan begin, and the rule books for these gamesresemble small tomes in size and complexity. Con-sidering this state of affairs, it would be expectedthat there would be niche market of games thatcould combine the strategy and game play of theCCG’s without going overboard with the simplicityand one time price of a standard deck of playingcards. However, card games in this intermediatecategory have traditionally been far off this mark sothat you would have more chance for strategy andinteresting game play from a hand of Old Maid.Part of the problem is that many of these intermedi-

ate games are designed and marketed for youngerchildren, which is the case for “Extinction,” the onlyother paleontological card game I know. BoneWars is unique in that it manages to walk the linebetween the standard playing cards and the CCG’staking many of their best elements, and does so ina smart manner that is enjoyable for both adultsand older children.

In Bone Wars, players portray one of fourpaleontologists from the 19th century Bone Rush ofthe American West (O.C. Marsh, Edward Cope,Charles Sternberg, and Barnum Brown, see Figure1) and compete for “Scientific Immortality” by col-lecting Prestige Points. Each of these paleontolo-

Figure 1. Edward Drinker Cope Paleontologist Card.

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gists is represented by his own card that gives theplayer a particular advantage such as drawingextra cards or starting with more Prestige Points.This among many other touches results in no twogames that are the same. Players accrue prestigein one of three typical ways until they reach anagreed upper limit and win the game. Prestigecomes from describing dinosaurs, revising your orother players’ skeletons, and using certain Eventcards. A round of play consists of three phases:Field Season, Museum Work, and Controversy.During Field Season, players draw the Bone andEvent Cards they will use to build their skeletons inMuseum Work and revise them in Controversy.The Bone Cards consist of 18 Dinosaur cards (seeFigure 2) in four groups represented by their color,and a whole series of Bone cards representing theHead, Vertebrae, and Limbs of the similarly color-coded dinosaurs (See Figure 3). As long as youhave a two different Bones of a Dinosaur of thesame color, you can build a skeleton in your“museum” and gain prestige. However, the Bonecards have descriptions of their elements on them,and in Controversy players can replace the bonesof other players’ Dinosaurs with Bones that moreclosely match their descriptions thereby allowingyou to steal prestige from an opponent. The truecomplexity of the game comes from the Eventcards (See Figure 4). Some Event cards can beplayed at particular times, some prevent prestigelost, some help some help to describe dinosaurs,and a large portion just stymie your opponents.The interaction between these cards and the restof the game is where the game play takes on someof its most interesting aspects.

Much design has been put into the cardsthemselves. The card art was created by Bryant P.Johnson, author for the online comic TeachingBaby Paranoia. The artwork has a slick appear-

ance with sharp tones and lines usually only foundin graphic art made by placing hundreds of shapestogether in Adobe Illustrator™. The muted toneshe uses for his strips have taken on the browns,tans, and maroons of sepia tones and give thegame an antique appearance. Splashes of colorare uncommon and usually accentuate a certainaspect of the art such as a match flame in Burn theEvidence, the water in Flash Flood, or a featheredreconstruction of a dinosaur in New Paradigm. Thelast example is likely an inside joke by the creatorssince it is the only anachronism present in thecards. The game is littered with this type of small,well-thought out touches, whether it be the audi-ence members’ wide eyes in Impressive Recon-struction (See Figure 4), the “Made in China” labelin It’s a Fake!, or that the same happy paleontolo-gist sitting on a pile of bones in Priority is unhappyon the same pile in Scooped! Many of the cardstake their inspiration from true events from the realbone wars in cards like Too Much Tail, Public Feud,and Head at Wrong End. The most charming addi-tion is that each of the Event cards has a quotefrom a paleontologist or other historical figure fromthe time period. Darwin lauds works on dinosaurs,Cope feuds with Marsh, and field crews are besetby both natural elements and other field crews.One tradition of other CCG’s that I wish the cre-ators had incorporated is the listing of the source ofthis “flavor text”. Bone Wars just lists the author.

The tagline for Bone Wars, The RuthlessGame of Paleontology, is apt. That is, game playcenters often more on preventing the other playersfrom succeeding than trying to get yourself to win.Around my table, rivalries cropped up betweenplayers as they kept revising each other’s Dino-saurs and stealing and restealing prestige. I shouldpoint out that by the next game new rivalriesappeared, old ones were forgotten, and the largest

Figure 2. Stegosaurus Dinosaur card. Figure 3. Head Bone card.

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argument of the first night of game play waswhether we should read all the cards first or be sur-prised at what cards appeared in play. The playersaround my table identified three main strategies towin the game. A “quick and dirty” strategy in whicha Dinosaur is described as fast as possible but isvery susceptible to revision, a “slow but precise”strategy in which a Dinosaur is described if it isnearly complete and/or the Bone cards correspondexactly to the Dinosaur, and a “revisionist” strategyin which the player only revises other players’Dinosaurs and cannot lose prestige through revi-sion because they do not produce anything them-selves. If this sounds at all like the practice ofpaleontology, it is probably on purpose. The cre-ators have managed to capture different aspects oftaxonomy, publication, and fieldwork in card form.Many of the cards will sound familiar such as WaitUntil He’s Dead, Switching Labels, and Mining theBasement.

The game is not without it’s issues, but thereare only two that think bear mentioning. In BoneWars there are three Field Crew cards. These arethe only Event cards that remain in play and giveyou an advantage while they remain in play. How-ever, there are also three other Event cards that letplayers steal Field Crew cards (Better Food, BetterPay, and Cask of Whiskey). Often, by the time aplayer plays a Field Crew another player has acard that will take it from him or her. A player mustdecide if they even want to play a Field Crew know-ing it will likely come back to bite them. Field Crewsalso have their own section in the instructions toexplain the special rules centered around thesethree cards. Field Crews probably could have beenleft out or made a larger part of the game to inte-grate them better with the rest of the game. I wouldprefer the latter; I always take my chances andplay the Field Crew cards.

The other issue is one about game play. Theinstructions are quite short for a game of this type.The entire set if rules can fit on the two sides of an8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. Terse instructionsare generally a good idea for card games and thegame has obviously been well play tested (thecredits list 17 play testers), but one more aspectshould be included. Many CCG’s have rules abouttiming, that is, what order certain cards or effectstake affect if they happen at the about same time.Multiple Event cards can be played at the sametime by different players, and it sometimes it has tobe decided what order they should take affect. Atmy table, we decided to resolve the Events in theorder they were played from last to first. This

mechanic is used by many CCG’s and works quitewell. Players not familiar with this type of cardgames might find it counter-intuitive. “By the book”players may want to tap on the table or otherwiseshow that they do not want to play any more cardsat a particular time.

Another aspect mentioned by a colleague ofmine is that Mary Anning should have beenincluded as one of the Paleontologist cards todenote the contributions of women to paleontology.I do not disagree, but she was unfortunately notpart of the American bone wars, which were at thetime an all boys club. However, many of the cardsshow a female paleontologist doing such things asdiscovering a Dinosaur Graveyard, going on a Lec-ture Tour, and so on. Mary may be represented inthe game after all, if not specifically by name.

Bone Wars is mainly distributed thoughZygote Games’ website but is also sold at the YalePeabody Museum Store. The game has been sell-ing for about a year after the creators hosted ademo session at last year’s Dino Days. The gamehas enjoyed brisk sales, and is one of the top sell-ers in the card and board games category of thePeabody Museum Store. It is also unusual in that itis one of the few products stocked in both the adultand children’s sections of the store. In the chil-dren’s section it is placed higher up than manyproducts to be closer to the eye line of older chil-dren. One of the take home messages from thedemo was that younger children can play thegame, but older children and adults were enjoyingthe game on another level.

In a world where dinosaur movies, games,and toys make millions of dollars off the efforts ofpaleontologists, my main complaint has been thequality of their work. If the entertainment industries

Figure 4. Impressive Reconstruction Event card.

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were going to profit from our work, at least theycould do a better job. Anyone who has picked up aplastic bag of “dinosaurs” that had both a Dimetro-don and a Wooly Mammoth in it probably has hadsimilar thoughts. Zygote Games is run by a hus-band and wife team of a biologist and gamedesigner. There website sports a history lessonbehind the cards, a suggested reading list, and ascience blog. If all new games were created in sim-ilar manner, there would be a lot better sciencegames on the market, and a lot better-designedgames in general. Zygote games is bringing similarflare to its upcoming release, Parasites Unleashed,in which the different disgusting and fascinatingaspects of parasite lifecycles are depicted in a sim-ilar cartoon-like and humorous outlook that theybrought to Bone Wars. Bone Wars will not be the

last card game I ever buy, but it will be in the top ofthe rotation in my game box.

As a final note, if you do decide to play thegame in the field, I would suggest packing thecards in two regular playing card boxes. The boxBone Wars is packaged in normal card stock andhas a tendency to dent and have its corners bendin a pack. Special thanks for this review goes toMatt Benoit and Uná Farrell, who were the otherplayers across the table at that first game, andKathleen Sullivan at the Yale Peabody MuseumStore.

Bone Wars is recommended for 2 to 4 playersfor ages 10 and up, but is equally playable by olderchildren and adults. Bone Wars retails for $19.95,but a 10% discount is offered for orders comingfrom an educational address.