Howdy all. So I'm a pretty big Dominant Species fan and was very excited when I heard that DS would get all new artwork in the 3rd printing. My set came yesterday and I immediately took it out, compared against the 2nd ed, and played a game to see the new pieces in action. Here are my thoughts:
I'm going to take a minute to acknowledge the whole artwork debate here for a second. Games are personal things, they are labors of love and BGG gives us the very unique chance to discuss them with the artist. Knowing that makes it very difficult for me to pass judgement on things like art quality because I know that I am basically telling someone "You aren't good at a thing" to their face. I have tried to stay out of the DS artwork debates here for that very reason. In this review I will do my best to focus on the FUNCTIONAL changes brought around by the new artwork and will keep value judgements firmly in the realm of "My taste". That is, I recognize what kind of artwork resonates for me doesn't resonate for everybody. This means that I am not going to say any artwork before or after was bad, just that I prefer one over the other.
There, got that out of the way. On to the bits. Please excuse my lousy off-kilter pictures.
Hexes
Functional improvements include far easier to read text and scoring values right on the hex itself. These are tremendously helpful. The change from 'Terrain Tile' to "Wanderlust Tile' is subtle but positive in my opinion. Now the tile is directly tied to the action itself. More importantly, the back of the tile matches the gameboard and no actual terrain tiles. The old terrain tile looked a good deal like the desert and on a quick glance could easily be confused as still being available. With these new backs it is clear which tiles are available for selection. I'm a big fan of the new artwork on each piece; it is high resolution and vibrant. 386
The mountain and jungle hexes in particular are quite detailed. What's more, everything really pops on the new white board.
Cards
the dark backgrounds with the light text makes readability trivial. The different coloring for the Ice Age card sets it apart from all the rest. Beyond that the artwork is absolutely beautiful on the new cards. I enjoy that many of them took their inspiration from the original DS cards.
elements
The changes to the elements are subtle but important. Each element has a slightly redesigned icon and a dark boarder. While the images are very much the same the coloring is far bolder than before. This helps with gameplay quite a bit as the elements stand out against the hexes better than before.
Player's Aids
Not a lot of differences here. You've lost the unique backgrounds from the original players aids (each species had a different background) and have replaced it with the same ice themed background on each. I do like how the color-coded speciation text stands out against the background a little better, but aside from that, few differences.
The Board
Getting past the artwork itself the board is much improved from a functional perspective. Going to a ice themed background lightens the board considerably which makes text, particularly that in the bonus points table and the scoring track, far easier to read. Black on white text or white with a drop shadow really pops from across the table. Notice how much more the reset phase text or the action title text (Initiative/Adaptation/etc) stands out. I tend to think the eyeball logo looks a little out of place now but that's a personal taste issue.
All in all I am a huge fan of the update. I know it's a bit of a holy war here, but I think that a number of changes were made for playability as much as anything else. As far as my personal tastes are concerned, I love the new vibrant artwork. It is a far cry from the minimalist design, but it also isn't so busy that you lose your pieces on the tiles. Not even the green one on the savanna or the blue ones on the wetlands. It all just works and was clearly the effort of not just an artist, but a solid graphic designer. Completely worth the upgrade in my opinion. 336