Board Game Arena

Will you be willing to cover and lose a species to develop your manuscript?

CODEX NATURALIS is an accessible and addictive game with strategic choices and placements that will get your brain working!

Here, you must continue the work of the illuminating monk Tybor Kwelein, assembling the pages of a manuscript that lists the living species in primary forests. Can you put the pages together in the best order possible? And are you prepared to sacrifice a species to develop your manuscript?

In the game, each player starts with a single card on the table, a card that shows some combination of the four possible resources in the middle of the card, in the corners of the card, or both. Players also have two resource cards and one gold card in hand, while two of each type of card are visible on the table.

On a turn, you place a card from your hand overlapping the corners of one or more cards you already have in play. Your starting card has four overlappable corners, while resource and gold cards have only three.

Resource cards have no cost to be played, and they often depict resource symbols in their corners.
Gold cards deliver points when played, but they often have a resource requirement, e.g., three fungi or two plant/one animal/one insect, and you must have those resources visible in your manuscript at the time you play the gold card. You score points from this card immediately, with some cards having a fixed value and others a variable one depending on how many of a certain symbol are showing or how many corners you covered this turn.
If you wish, you can play a card from your hand face down; such a card has four corners and one resource, but provides no points. After you play, draw a face-up card or the top card of either deck to refill your hand.

When a player reaches 20 points, you complete the round, and each player takes one additional turn. Players then score points based on how well they matched two public objective cards and one secret objective card, after which the player with the most points wins.

If you're ready, you can click this link to go to the game page:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?ga ... xnaturalis

It's a novelty, as the game was released only a few months ago, and we would like to thank the Bombyx Team (especially Yann) and of course, the game designer Thomas Dupont, who made this possible. Also, take some time to enjoy the beautiful artwork from Maxime Morin (it's not as beautiful as the real game, but wonderfully crafted).
And obviously, nothing would have been possible without our developer, LeSteffen, who did an amazing job here. Kudos to him!

And now is time for you to get your hands on this gem. Or these insects. And why not cover them with this plant you just found?
It's all up to you!

Awesome Flanders placement. Took me a while.

oniony wrote: ↑14 July 2021, 13:59 Awesome Flanders placement. Took me a while.

Some covers are easier to work with
But thanks ^^

The one thing I'm wondering about after a play is: Why can't you see the opponent's play area? You can see what cards they play and what symbols they have, but you can't see how their cards are arranged. That hides useful information, like how the arrangement-based objectives are going for them, effectively preventing any chance at real player interaction.

Just click on the black meeple with the eye in the players box on the right !

kap-horn wrote: ↑15 July 2021, 09:27 Just click on the black meeple with the eye in the players box on the right !

Thanks. For some reason I completely missed that.

Will there be an official release tournament as there was with other recent Bombyx games? Thanks.

oniony wrote: ↑14 July 2021, 13:59 Awesome Flanders placement. Took me a while.

I saw that too and was puzzled. Why is Flanders here?

Thanks for the mention of how to see your opponents play area. Also had no idea. The interface to move the view of your play area could also use some love, as that was not the easiest thing to move meaningfully. But outside of that, great adaptation of a fun game!

It would be great to be able to zoom in and out to see the hole of your area. Also to have a strong difference in the card when it is selected. Thanks for everything!