Pair A Dice Games Corner

Earth

Dirt, the game

A friend suggested I really try Earth by Inside Up Games, despite my feeling of being flooded by the rash of games with nature themes since Wingspan had its smash success in 2019. I was reticent. I end up playing a lot of games with lasers and orcs, so another in the natural milieu is not something that really got me excited.

But I acquiesced. The FOMO of potentially missing out on the new hotness got the better of me.

It is great. There’s not an orc or laser for a million miles, but it’s really fun.

There are lots of comparisons folks make: Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova, and I think they both make sense, but to me the best comparison is a very evolved Wingspan.

In the game you take on the role of dirt. Well, specifically an island. There’s local fauna you’re trying to be appealing to (which are also the games objectives) and be the most hospitable to them, and you do this by planting flora.

Theme aside, you’re building a tableau of 16 cards in a 4x4 grid. Most of the cards are plants and environmental phenomena, you pay for these cards with “Dirt”, and they have a base point value. Some of the environmental cards give you additional points for adjacency or presence in your tableau as well. Cards also have the capacity for “Growth” and “Sprout” tokens which are worth points in the end game but also can be used to build an engine (more in a second).

Each turn, the active player is choosing from one action, from the four, Planting (Green), Composting (Red), Watering (Blue), and Growing (Yellow) — that action has a powerful form for the active player and a minimal form for the other players. For example, the Plant action allows the active player to add two cards to their tableau and look at four cards and add one to their hand — while the rest of the players plant one card and draw one card. There are four actions to choose from, most giving all players the opportunity to gain Growth, Sprout, or Dirt.

Finally, and this is I think where the game is most exciting, you take your tableau actions. Most cards have individual actions which is color coded to the above actions, so start with your top left card and move from left to right all the way down your tableau.

This is where your engine is built, and where some gamers really get to show off their brilliance.

So you can line up your red actions so, for example, one card will sack Growth tokens to give you Dirt, then trade Dirt for more Sprouts. Or you plant a card that allows you to get Sprouts on all cards in a particular column, but needs Dirt in order to activate, so you plant a card that makes sure it generates dirt for you. Some cards are multi-color, so you can always count on them for actions. 

It’s really clever, and it lived up to the hype for me. It may lack lasers and orcs, and it may mean you’re inhabiting the role of… well, dirt, but I highly recommend Earth, for me it scratches the itch for that engine-building, tableau-building game.