To fill my science electives, I decided I would take a biodiversity class since I enjoy learning about nature, especially with how deeply I care about climate change and environmental protections. It seemed like a good use of my time, albeit in the form of a low-stress class.

But who said I was allowed to relax? When we were assigned our final—to make a biodiversity-themed board game—I knew what the bar was. My friend who is a biology major had taken it, and her A+ project was a trivia game made in 15 minutes on hand-written index cards. So, it should be simple, right?

I, self-proclaimed board game nerd and CATAN regional champ, competing in the national tournament on my 20th birthday this September, could not settle for a half-assed project. Unfortunately, I did not budget the time to try-hard on a bio project when I registered for classes, so when a bunch of last-minute prints failed, I went into a room of cardboard games feeling a bit empty-handed. I do plan to finish it, I just need to make sure my classes, work, and more academic/educational projects come first. It certainly did not help that the professor unexpectedly held my project over winter break for grading, as that was when I had budgeted time to finish it.

Everything for this project is entirely original. I used the laser cutter and 3D printers to manufacture my designs. All 2D artwork was created in Inkscape, and all 3D was first rendered in Fusion360 then brought into Blender for surface modeling, when applicable.

All the game needs now is playtesting (the major time constraint right now), and final assembly, since all the parts have been printed. I have all the decently-complex rules written up, but there’s some issues of balancing that need to be addressed.