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You can pack a lot of fun into a small box, especially when you pack it full of microbe meeples. I’ll say it again. ‘Meeple Microbes’ (squeeee!) Yup, and these cute little guys are the focus of Smirk & Dagger’s latest game, BIOTIX.
In this nasty, little, 2-5 player game, your boss, Dr. Lillian Johannae, has made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of microbiology. She’s discovered a new breed of extremely unstable, highly volatile microorganisms — BIOTIX (patent pending and pronounced ‘biotics’) — that can uneasily coexist within a small system. But science can be a brutally competitive field. What began as an innocent pursuit of discovery has quickly devolved into self-centered posturing and ruthless backstabbing among her lab personnel, all vying to have their name attached to the research paper, thereby rocketing them (you!) into scientific superstardom!
Your mission: carefully grow the largest culture of BIOTIX possible — while sabotaging the work of others by pushing their microbe populations above their limit, causing them to explode and bio-react in all sorts of fun ways. Game play is simple. On your turn, draw two BIOTIX meeples from the specimen bag and place them, one at a time, either onto your own petri dish for points or into an opponent’s dish to try and force a bio-reaction to destroy their work.
Each of the five BIOTIX species has a different trigger number and a unique bio-reaction when they ‘go off’. It may force you to trash the microbes, force microbes from your dish into the petri dishes of others, steal microbes, or wipe out a species across the whole table. The BIOTIX are in a constant state of flux throughout the game, as is your score, because at the end of the day you gain points for the BIOTIX culture remaining in your dish, with the most volatile BIOTIX being worth the most points. The best score over the course of three days of research determines the winner! Designer Zachary Huff explained, “I wanted each bio-reaction to have a unique feel”, and he balanced them so that there was “a give-and-take to the effects which would make up for the points that were lost in the reaction. It resulted in a lot more strategy and backstabbing, as it was quite possible that giving pieces away to an opponent (seemingly giving them points) could cause catastrophic chains of explosions and lost points. I like to think of the game as a ‘give-that’ game (a close cousin to the take-that genre).”
And, of course, that’s what drew in Smirk & Dagger, who has a reputation for publishing games that are “more fun when you can stab a friend in the back.” “Zach contacted us with a game designed to pester his sister,” mused Smirk & Dagger Owner Curt Covert, “and they created this hilarious video mockumentary of lab assistants blowing each other up in a lab, telling the story of the game. Well, that was enough to earn him a meeting at GENCON. We played and were really impressed, but there was still some work to be done.” Over the next few months, Zach and Smirk & Dagger worked together to refine the game, testing new ideas at game stores and at Metatopia, the game design fair in Morristown, New Jersey. The piece count of the meeples was increased to ensure bio-reactions occurred with just the right frequency. Trashed meeples became hidden and a timer chip was added to keep people guessing. Zach said, “the Timer token worked two-fold: it made the pieces drawn and the pieces that may never get rendered completely unpredictable, and it eliminated the potential kingmaker issue given to the last player of a round (who previously could act with relative impunity). Then, a completely new type of microorganism was developed that subtly changed the feel of the game, making for even more confrontation and strategic game play.”
That late addition was the Aggressive BIOTIX, which are introduced in the Advanced rules. Aggressive BIOTIX are cancer-like microbes which replace other types of BIOTIX in your dish, mimicking their properties - but are worth negative points instead of their usual values. “I’m a huge fan of the Aggressives,” admits Curt. “Once people try them, they will always play with them. They add a lot to the strategy of the game. Now I have to think hard about blowing up your petri dish, as that player may pass me those negative points in the resulting bio-reaction. And it allows for a little ‘shoot the moon’ mechanic too. If you have only Aggressive BIOTIX in your dish at scoring, they’re all worth 5 points each, instead of negative 2. It really amps up the game.”
“Throughout the refinement, however, I wanted to keep one thing consistent,” Zach adds. “I wanted the game to be accessible and easy to pick up. The game can be explained in a brief statement: players draw pieces at random from a bag and may either keep them or give them to opponents. The strategies emerge and consistently change over the course of the game, but anyone can take that statement and hit the ground running. The game also moves at a brisk pace, and definitely leaves players with a desire to perform just one more experiment!” One can learn the game in two minutes and it’s small and portable enough to take anywhere. It’s the kind of game you can play with gamers and non-gamers alike and have a blast! Literally. So ask your local retailer to order your copy today!
Fast Facts:
Curt Covert is the owner and Chief Instigator at Smirk & Dagger Games, dedicated to proving that games are more fun when you can stab a friend in the back. A fourteen-year veteran in the industry and the inventor of Cutthroat Caverns, Hex Hex, and Nevermore, just to name a few. It's kinda like the word, "schottenfreude" was coined just for him and his games. |
