Skip to main content

Renature is a board game about reversing climate change from the makers of Tikal

Flora good cause.

Bring life back to a desolate land in Renature, an upcoming board game from Tikal creators Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling.

Set around a valley that has been polluted - presumably by the actions of humankind - Renature sees players attempting to regrow the flora and fauna that once populated this area. Restoring the natural beauty of the area will encourage wildlife to settle and graze there, thereby providing more opportunities for the plant life to pollinate and spread. Players will have to time their plantings carefully if they want their greenery to grow as far as possible.

A game for two to four players, Renature has players selecting and placing different kinds of dominos across the board, with the aim of matching as many sides as they can. Each piece will show a combination of different animals or plants. Wherever the player chooses to place a domino, it must share symbols with all of its neighbours. Any pieces placed and matched can then have a plant laid inside the same area.

Watch on YouTube

Players then score points depending on how many plants, and the size of said plants, are there. Should the area ever be surrounded by dominos, the players can score points for plants once again - with a final chance to score points at the game’s end.

As the game progresses, players will compete to corner off certain areas to maximise their point totals, ensuring that their opponents don’t do the same to them. The winner of Renature is whoever scores the most points by the time the last domino tile is placed on the board.

As well as their collaborations, Kramer and Kiesling are known for their individual creations, with Kiesling having designed the beginner board game Azul - alongside its sequels, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra and Summer Pavilion - and Kramer being the creator behind sports board game Top Race, recently rebooted as Downforce.

Watch on YouTube

Together, the pair have collected the Spiel des Jahres - Germany’s prestigious Game of the Year prize - twice for Tikal and Torres. Kramer has won the award a further five times for games including El Grande, while Kiesling received it alone in 2018 for Azul.

Renature was originally announced in January, after Kramer and Kiesling confirmed that they would be reuniting to work on the tile-laying game. Capstone Games - the studio behind Pipeline and the Iron Rail series of train games - is partnering with Deep Print Games, a new company founded by individuals from Eggertspiele and Plan B Games, to publish the game.

Renature is set to be released on October 28th as part of Capstone Games’ Simply Complex series - which includes construction games The Climbers and The Estates - at a retail price of $50/£40.

Read this next

Alex Meehan avatar
Alex Meehan: After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.
In this article

Renature

Tabletop Game

Dicebreaker is the home for friendly board game lovers

We welcome board gamers of all levels, so sign in and join our community!