Peas and stuff

In Genotype you are assistants of Gregor Mendel – a 19th Century Friar who discovered the basics of modern genetics. You are collecting data on how pea plants 🌱 inherit key traits from their parents, like seed shape, flower color, stem color, and plant height.

Each round is made up of a worker placement phase, a dice drafting phase, then you can buy some upgrades in the research phase, then it is on to the cleanup for the next round. After five rounds the game is over.

The main mechanic is contract-fulfillment. You get most of your points by completing pea plant cards – you do this by covering all of their traits with the help of the drafted dice. Additionally there is a set collection element. You can pay for research into different traits, like for example purple colored flowers – you will get points for each type of plant you completed with this trait at the end of the game.

There is also progression as the game goes on. You can unlock new workers or new slots for dice or your pea plant cards. You can buy assistants that give ongoing abilities and tool cards that are single use only. So you will feel a bit stronger in the later rounds than in the first one.

We played a 2-player game which seems to work fine. A 4 or 5 player game must be incredibly tough as worker placement spots and dice will be much more limited. Genotype has an amazing table presence with all of its popping colors. 🤩 My favorite nice little touch is the abacus 🧮 on the board where you will track the cost of upgrades.

I was a bit afraid after seeing that the main mechanic is contract-fulfillment – those types of games usually fall flat for us. However we enjoyed our playthrough, because luckily there are some more things going on here. 🙃

It's also a refreshing scientific theme for a board game- like every game from Got Genius Games 👍