We talk casually about genetics and inherited traits. Literal physical traits like the color of mom’s eyes, and intangibles like dad’s love of gaming. Genetics as a whole isn’t something that is confined to discussions by white coated scientists anymore. It’s in our everyday vocabulary. We ask doctors to look for inherited disease markers, and we manipulate plant genes to improve crops. A global debate rages on about how far is too far when it comes to genetic manipulation. We upload genetic information to the internet to learn about our heritage and find family members we may not have known about.

It’s easy to forget that the foundational information about genes and inherited traits that saturates our modern world started with humble pea plants and a monk named Gregor Mendel. He spent years doing genetic modification the old-fashioned way, observing traits in individuals, cross-pollinating (by hand!), and taking copious notes. Then doing it again. And again. And again. He did this over years and multiple generations of plants. You get to do it in five rounds of the game Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics game. How exactly does it work? Let’s see!

Soundtrack for Genotype: Monastery Garden ambient recording on YouTube

Gameplay Overview:

Genotype plays over five rounds. Each round, you place a marker (little trowel) on one of nine available action slots. You take the action immediately. Actions include gardening, manipulating genes, researching or expanding your garden, or buying tools. Actions are selected in turn order. After all players have placed all markers, you move into the second part of the round, researching plant traits.

There are some pretty useful upgrades available. But they are going to cost you. Researching traits is accomplished by rolling a large number of dice and placing them on the corresponding trait combinations for each of four different trait pairings. Select a die matching a trait on one pea plant card to ‘discover’ the trait. Discovered traits are marked with little pea bud tokens. Once all traits are covered, you can harvest the plant for points. Select dice until all your dice spots are filled.

After all players have selected as many dice as they can, you move into the final stage of the round—research upgrades. From here, you can purchase additional plots for planting, additional dice slots for discovering traits, assistants, and even more action markers (up to five total).

For solo play, there is an automa deck to mimic a second player. Actions are listed on each card, some of which are clarified by drawing a second card. The same cards have arrows to research plant traits and collect research upgrades.

That’s a lot of dice! You can manipulate the traits to increase your odds of getting the traits you need.

Game Experience:

This is based on solo play only.

There is a lot packed into this game. It took several plays—and more mistakes than I want to admit—to really get a solid feel for all the possible actions. Some actions have multiple parts, and it can be important to remember that. Gardening is a great example. You select plants, harvest, then sow. But if you buy a plant in your next action, you can’t sow it until you next garden. So, if you really want that particular pea plant, buy it first, then garden.

Individual player boards are your garden. Extra plots can be purchased and so can some helpers. The genes or traits are all based on Punnett squares; those little four-by-four grids from high school biology. There are twenty dice (five in each of four colors). In addition to having numerical indicators for each trait combination, they also have mutation symbols (little genes, super cute), which permit you to change the dice roll to discover a trait you need that might not be available with the existing dice. It takes up an extra dice slot, but it can be worth it when you’ve only got one trait left on a high-value plant card.

There are additional actions too, on my first couple of plays, these felt like extras, which only complicated things. Once I really got a feel for the game, though, I realized how valuable they truly were. You can change the parent genes to give yourself a better chance at discovering traits you need. You can also research certain traits and give yourself a point bonus at the end for every card bearing that trait. Some assistants have powerful, persistent bonuses that make it worth saving up your coins to buy them (if someone else doesn’t first).

The solo automa deck is small, and requires a lot of reshuffling, but using the cards in combination with one selecting the action and a second clarifying specifics (which trait is being manipulated, for example) adds great variety to the deck. It never becomes predictable. As with a lot of solo automas, your opponent gets some extra benefits, and this one has a whole series of actions to complete before you start researching traits. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’s competitive but not brutally overpowered.

Final Thoughts:

I under-estimated Genotype’s complexity. It takes more strategy than I initially anticipated, and you need to consider the traits on your plant cards a lot more than I did in my first couple of plays. The game is all about gaining points, but there are multiple ways you can boost your points. Researching traits is the most obvious. Manipulating the parent genes so that you stand a better chance of gaining traits you need is equally important. If you are discovering the same trait over and over, you might want to research that trait for points. Takes a little patience and a lot of focus to learn. In the end, though, it’s worth the time.

Final Score: 4 Stars – Solid game, artwork is beautiful and suits the theme, just takes some time to learn.

Hits:

• Artwork is thematic

• Dice mitigation options

• Punnett square genetics is easy to understand

Misses:

• Rolling 20 dice at once is a challenge

• Needs a better player aid for solo