Game: Quirks

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sderrick — 2008-04-06T09:15:09+00:00

The odd game of Quirks

Thread: Re: Hey, that’s one funky lookin’ dog, man

Savagecupid — 2008-02-13T15:38:10+00:00

Great review. I also think this is a good game, my 8 year old son likes it alot. We are thinking about tying to play with the environments in different orders, randomly decided at the begining of the game, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Thread: Hey, that’s one funky lookin’ dog, man

mi_de — 2008-02-12T21:11:06+00:00

Quirks is a game by the Eon team, co-published with the Games Workshop company. It’s designed for 1-4 players and takes about an hour.

What you get

Inside a greenish box with a pretty nice illustration of all sorts of strange zoological specimens is an unfolding, narrow strip playing board on thick paper depicting five environments (ocean, forest, plains, desert and jungle) with a track of era spaces under the environment sections, each six spaces long. One of these spaces is marked with an ‘x’. You get 108 color ‘trait’ cards divided into plants and animals, and further divided into tops, middles, and bottoms, which will be combined during game play to make all manner of creatures and growing things, with each card containing a letter code suggestive of the environment that trait is dominant: for example, fins are best used at sea. The cards have nice illustrations, but are on the thin side. There is a trait calculator, to determine what each of the mutations are worth in each of the climates. You also get 18 paper fate tokens and 12 player identity markers/strips. The materials used were not the best quality, but the look of the game is quite nice, in my mind, with little clutter, although the trait values on the cards and calculator are pretty small fonts, and the box is pretty empty-looking.

What you do

The goal of the game is to simultaneously hold the position as the dominant plant, herbivore and carnivore Quirk. Setup consists of three dominant Quirks being formed, one in each category, by random draws of a top, middle, and bottom trait for each done in turn order, and each Quirk is marked as owned by the placing player. Below the dominant Quirks, in the lower niche, if formed plants/creatures with 2 card each. The climate marker is placed anywhere on the environment card. 9 cards are dealt to each player making 3 complete Quirks, and act as the player’s hand. The game is ready to play.

A player’s turn consists of the following steps: first, a fate token is flipped over. This fate card will indicate which niche you may make a play in. After flipping the token, you must advance the climate marker 1 or 2 spaces, possibly triggering mutations, or changing the climate entirely (from forest to plains, for example).

If the fate token drawn earlier is one in which you control the dominant Quirk, you have the option to mutate, which means you may exchange one of the three traits of your creature with one from the appropriate draw pile (sight unseen) or from your hand. If you mutate, your turn is over. If you choose not to mutate when you have the dominant Quirk, you may draw another fate marker, but this requires the climate marker be moved again. This continues until you mutate, or draw a fate token with a climate in which you are not the dominant species.

In this latter case, you have two options: mutate your lower niche Quirk (if you have one) or challenge in that niche. To challenge a lower niche Quirk, you choose two traits from your hand that you think will out-compete the creature currently occupying the niche. The opponent then either withdraws his Quirk (discarding it) or stay to fight. Then the active player can run. If not, the challenge is on. The trait codes of the traits making up the Quirk are consulted, and their values are determined on the trait calculator, each trait given a value 0-5 in each environment depending on its appropriateness for helping the creature survive. There are also bonuses to be had for having herbivores that can eat the plant species occupying its niche, or for carnivores that can eat the herbivore at its niche level. The scores are totaled, and the high number wins the niche. The loser goes extinct. Going extinct is bad. Collect 3 extinctions during the game, and you are eliminated from play. Evolution is a nasty business!

If you have a lower niche Quirk, you can challenge the upper niche Quirk. For the most part the challenge is handled the same way, with a couple alterations. First, the challenger gets to draw a card for the missing trait of his lower niche candidate, and decide whether to use this card or one already in their hand to complete the challenging Quirk. The defender can choose to mutate, either by blindly drawing a top trait card, or by playing a substitute from their hand. Both players simultaneously reveal their Quirks. If face down, they accept defeat, if face up, they continue the challenge. If both are face down, the current niche occupant keeps his throne. If both face up, the challenge is resolved with the calculator as described earlier.

Whenever one player has Quirks in all three upper niches and can hold it through one set of challenges from each of the lower niche creatures, they win. A player also wins if they are the last player with Quirks still on the board, all other players having gone extinct.

Solo rules are included for designing a ‘perfect’ set of three Quirks before accumulating 3 extinctions. This is done by playing a trait each turn on one of your Quirks. At any time you can consult the calculator to see if you can score enough points to dominate the niche: 40 for the forest, 30 for the desert, and so on.

What I think

I’m continually astounded how far ahead of their time the Eon guys were. Quirks is a light game, and one of the earliest on the theme of evolution. I find it quite a fun, fast game. A particularly enticing aspect is that each trait card has part of a name, and as you assemble traits, you also get names creatures, like the Vishfat with head of an owl and body of a fish, or the insect like Scirdeed with the tail of a horse. There is some strategy in moving the climate marker, and timing of your niche challenges. And there is a good opportunity of testing your natural science knowledge by estimating exactly what traits would aide survival in a plains environment? There is quite a bit of luck needed, too, but I think a well-made, planned Quirk with an eye for a turn or three ahead can net you a well-deserved win. The game had two expansions I am seeking out, because you can never have enough traits. Even the solo game works as a puzzle. I would say if you have any interest in the subject matter, this plays faster than Ursuppe, and is much less detailed than the excellent American Megafauna, but fits in its own niche in the genre quite well.

Thread: Re: Rock Scissors Paper mechanic?

tool — 2007-09-24T20:35:07+00:00

I removed it when I noticed it, since it doesn't really qualify.

Thread: Re: Rock Scissors Paper mechanic?

wimble — 2007-06-05T10:08:51+00:00

It's listed with that because of the food chain: Carnivores eat Herbivores which eat Plants.

To be complete, you'd really need the Plants to grow really big, and then fall over, crushing the Carnivores ;-)

Thread: Rock Scissors Paper mechanic?

paulclarke339 — 2007-06-03T23:58:45+00:00

I see this game is listed under the Rock Scissors Paper mechanic. I played about half a game of this a few months back, but I don't think we had the rules right.

Could someone remind me where the scissors/paper/stone come in?

Thanks

Thread: Re: General Comment

brotherj — 2006-07-24T20:03:50+00:00

I actually still have this game complete with the 2 expansion packs. I used to play this a lot in the 80s during my young gaming years. I also remember my friends and I used to play the RPG Star Frontiers a lot. I actually used some of the quirks we made in this game as monsters in Star Frontiers.

Hmmm....I am gonna have to go break out Quirks again. Thanks for the memories!

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bluepigeon — 2006-02-04T21:17:56+00:00

End of a solitaire game. The total value of the plant, herbiovore, and carnivore is 36 points, just 4 points short of the winning requirement in the present climate (jungle).

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bluepigeon — 2006-02-04T21:13:34+00:00

Trait value list and slide with the five climates

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bluepigeon — 2006-02-04T21:06:16+00:00

Illustration in rule book depicting the game setup as well as some key points about the cards.

Thread: Quirks- the game of un-natural selection!

louiseh — 2005-05-29T16:43:51+00:00

I must have first played this game nearly 20 years ago. I remember being amused and it has been on my want list ever since. Thanks to a Geek trade I was delighted to receive a copy in very good condition, but surprised that it had never been reviewed here on the Geek. It’s never had as high a profile as some of Games Workshop’s other games and it does possess that non-Eurogame clunkiness at times but it certainly deserves a little more exposure.

The box is rather similar to the 1st Ed Talisman, being very green and yellow with a bright cover- pictures are on the Geek. Inside are four pages of rules and a page of a “Go Fish” variant for younger children. There is also a long piece of card which acts as the board; on the top are spaces for the 7 trait card types, then the Climate Track consisting of 5 Climate (terrain) types with 6 movement spaces in each, then the three niches for Quirks. These are the “upper niches”; there are also Quirks in “lower niches” which are played below the upper ones. There is also a trait value list- this is a screen with holes in and a sliding card inside which enables you to look up scores for particular trait cards in particular climates. Finally there are a bunch of Fate Tokens, each showing Plant, Herbivore or Carnivore, which are used to select a zone to play in each turn (these are omitted in the advanced game).

The seven trait card types are plant top, middle, bottom, herbivore head, carnivore head and generic animal body and tail. With these one can make the three types of Quirks, plant, herbivore and carnivore.

Each card contains a single syllable to form part of the Quirk name, a picture of an appropriate plant or animal part and an ability. So for instance there is a plant middle card, ability is “trunk”, name is UNK, picture is of a trunk. Or an animal middle called OOB, ability “shell and tube feet”, picture of a starfish . Or a carnivore head called ST, ability “stealth”, picture of cat type predator head.

Each card also has a serial number- ST is A35 for instance. This serial number enables you to look up that card in each of the 5 climates to see how effective it is. For instance Stealth is pretty useless in the desert, scoring 1, while in the jungle it is rather better on 3 and on the plains it really comes into its own scoring 5. The only time that you are allowed to look up these numbers is during a conflict. For the rest of the game you and your opponents need to guess how good a particular ability is going to be in a particular climate. While this does make success dependent on coming up with the same figures as the designers the numbers given seem to be pretty reasonable. There is also a clue at the bottom of each card indicating which climate types it scores 3 (sometimes) or more in; this information is restricted to the card holder and is covered up on played Quirks.

Finally the plant tops and the herbivore heads have a coloured plant symbol. If the plant and herbivore in the particular niches have matching coloured symbols then the plant does not score for that card, whereas the herbivore scores for the plant head in addition to its own score; these are known as food chain points and reflect the advantage or disadvantage of having or being a food source. Similarly if the coloured animal symbol on the herbivore’s tail matches that on the carnivore’s head then the herbivore loses and the carnivore gains points for the tail card.

The playing area has space for 6 Quirks- an upper niche plant, herbivore and carnivore and a lower niche of each. Upper niche Quirks are complete, lower niche ones consist of only 2 of the normal three cards. Random Quirks seed the board to start off with and are assigned to players in order, along with a hand of 9 cards making up one Quirk of each type. In subsequent turns each player draws a token showing one of the three types of Quirk, moves the climate marker one or two so that the game passes through each climate in between 3 and 6 turns, and either improves his Quirk in the appropriate area by swapping a card with his hand or the deck, or makes a challenge. Lower niche Quirks are challenged by playing 2 cards from your hand, upper niche ones by adding a card to your lower niche Quirk.

During challenges there is an opportunity for either side to withdraw and lose his Quirk. If the challenge goes to the scoring stage then the losing Quirk is made extinct; three extinctions and a player has lost the game.

Scoring is simple- each card is assessed for the current climate and any food chain points added or subtracted. The higher score wins- the defender wins ties.

If a player succeeds in gaining all the upper niches then the game is paused and each Quirk in a lower niche makes one challenge using the normal rules. If one succeeds then the game continues, otherwise the player occupying the upper niches has won.

The game has a high fun element; the pictures are great and the creatures made are amusing. There is a reasonable amount of tactics in when to challenge,when to withdraw or risk extinction and when to improve, and in planning for later climates while trying to keep your position in the current one. It’s not a strategic game though, and the card draws do affect the results quite considerably. I suspect that if one played it a lot then the guessing of card strengths would be replaced by knowledge but there are 108 cards so this might take a while. One minor irritation for me is that the climates are more accurately described as terrains- an ocean climate makes little sense.

It’s fast moving which is not something which can be said of many games from this GW era. It might not be a great game in terms of mechanics but it is a beautifully done theme and I’m very pleased with the outcome of my trade.

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gamesgrandpa — 2004-11-08T20:20:48+00:00

Sample Plants and Animals

Thread: Re:Session Report

nnicole — 2004-03-26T16:48:50+00:00

I would just like to say that my game-winning carnivore (parasitic sucker, snake body, peacock feathers) will be haunting my nightmares for weeks.

Thread: Session Report

dpfaigin — 2004-03-26T05:30:22+00:00

Today, I brought in an olde-but-goodie for lunch: Quirks. This was nnicole's first exposure to the game. After explaining the rules, we jumped right in. Initially, I had two upper niche creatures, and a lower niche herbavore. After an initial challange (a tie in the forest), my carnivore ate nnicole's for lunch. However, ascendency is never forever, and nnicole quickly gained a upper niche berth in the plants, as my creation was horrid in the plains. After a batch of mutations, we returned to the oceans and the carnivores, where nnicole won with a creation with a parasitic sucker, scales and slither, and mating selection. Don't those creatures inhabit the bars?

In any case, it was a good game. It reminded me of the creativity of the folks at Eon/Future Pasttimes -- we don't see games like this anymore. Someone should reprint Quirks.

Thread: Session Report

dpfaigin — 2004-01-26T14:05:26+00:00

For some reason, my daughter loves this game. She's nine, and its hard to know if its due to the names of the animals, or actually thinking about the traits.

In any case, I played this game with her and her friend (a 9yo boy) last night. It took them a while to think about the traits, and I still had trouble getting them to think strategically.

If you don't play Quirks strategically, the game goes far too fast, because everyone keeps making challenges and getting extinctions. Extinctions should be rare; there are times when you should go back to the lower niche if you're not stronger in that 'clime.

A rule issue popped up that I hadn't run into before (I've been playing Quirks since it was released). If you roll a niche where you're in the upper, do you still need to advance the climate token?

By the way, one modification we did to our game that I suggest to folks that have the game. Go out and get some of those plastic report spines (you know, the ones you slide your paper into). Cut them in half (getting two from each spine). Use these to hold your creatures. You can then easily pick them up and move them around.

Thread: Re:General Comment

rdsmith — 2004-01-14T01:30:33+00:00

Kisa (#21799),
Sorry you missed out. This is a great game for fun and strategy. Both expansions are strictly more body part cards with a new sliding "combat" scale to accommodate the new cards -- No new rules or anything. But, it's not nearly as good a game without the expansions. The amazing variety of all the possibilities is the fun, and does permit more players.
Good luck in your search!

Ray

Thread: Re:General Comment

Kisa — 2003-11-08T07:44:22+00:00

Ray Smith (#1772),

You are the only person I have ever seen talk about the expansions. I have never seen either of the expansions myself. In fact the only time I have ever seen one show up on Ebay I hadn't got the game yet and didn't make the choice to go ahead and go after it. Can you tell me what the new cards are like? Are they strictly more Quirk parts (heads, bodies & tails)? Are there any new features to these cards or new rules?

Thank you very much,

Kisa

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Latex Jedi — 2003-08-05T15:17:18+00:00

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Urhixidur — 2002-09-16T12:41:16+00:00

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Urhixidur — 2002-09-16T12:41:13+00:00

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

A fabulous and very underrated evolution game, which I prefer over Ursuppe and Evo. Essentially a card game where you create your Quirk (head, body, and tail), place it on display, and compete for dominance in each of the three niches - Plant, herbivore, and carnivore. The strategy and chrome of the game consists of not knowing exactly the value of each created quirk, when to contest for dominance, and the interaction between the three niches. My only caveat is that I wouldn't recommend playing it unless also using its two expansions. Without these additional cards it is not nearly as fun.

Thread: General Comment

Urhixidur — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Ned Horn rounds out the design credits.

There were two sets of expansion cards, also dated 1980. No new rules, just more cards.