In the Footsteps of Darwin is a beautifully light tile-drafting game where you play as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle. Your mission is to help Charles Darwin research his ground-breaking work, On the Origin of Species. It is incredibly quick to learn and play, wrapping up in exactly 12 turns per person.
How It Plays
The core of the game is wonderfully straightforward. On your turn, you carry out two main actions: drafting a tile and moving the Beagle.
Your turn always follows this quick flow:
- Draft your tile: Choose an animal or character tile from the row or column currently aligned with the Beagle meeple on the main board.
- Place it in your journal: Slot it onto your player board in its matching animal class or continent row to claim its instant rewards.
- Trigger clever bonuses: Completing entire rows or columns awards you high-scoring publication tokens. If you place a new animal tile over an existing one, you get to claim a guide token or secure an end-game scoring theory tile.
- Sail the Beagle: Move the Beagle meeple 1 to 3 spaces clockwise around the grid, based on how far away your drafted tile was. This positions the ship for the next player’s turn!
If you find yourself staring at a selection of tiles you don’t want, you can spend your hard-earned Guide tokens to nudge the Beagle forward and completely shift your options.
The Correspondence Expansion
For those wanting a touch more depth, the Correspondence expansion slides seamlessly into the base game without adding heavy rules bloat. It injects a brilliant little racing element and a dedicated England sideboard where you can use new Envelope tokens to buy extra tiles.
- Write Letters: You can choose to send letters to Darwin’s correspondents, exchanging 2 envelope tokens to hire historical figures.
- Earn Rewards & Points: Completing these correspondence objectives gives you powerful one-time bonuses during play and scores extra victory points at the end instead of the standard flat points.
- Classification Tokens: These are mini-objectives pulled from a bag when you draft a tile with the corresponding icon. Placing these on your notebook gives you bonus points when you draft the matching animal species, creating tighter competition.
What We Think
Amy and I were so pleasantly surprised by this one. We absolutely love games with a wide variety of gorgeous animal art, and the scoring here is incredibly intuitive.
While you might start your voyage without a completely rigid game plan, everything beautifully clicks together as you collect theories and complete your correspondence goals. It is light, satisfying, and doesn’t demand massive amounts of mental energy to enjoy. Our only complaint, is that even with the expansion we were still pining for something more. That could just be an us issue, as we’re so used to playing games that require so much concentration – it’s thrown us off a bit by playing a game that your brain has to quickly adapt to whatever your opponent has chosen. Planning way ahead of time isn’t really advised in this game.
Final Thoughts
At its core, In the Footsteps of Darwin is a lovely addition to any cozy game collection. It sits perfectly as a low-spoon option that offers meaningful choices without the heavy headache. Whether you play the base game for a quick, comforting puzzle or throw in the Correspondence expansion for a bit of friendly competition, it is an absolute joy to experience. I would just set your expectations, if you’re after something really meaty then this might not be the one for you. Check out our Mid-Spoon posts for those kind of games!
