Roll dice, collect wildlife, and complete habitats! With 4 maps to choose from, plus solo scenarios and achievements, there’s plenty of variety in how you can create the best ecosystem in Cascadia Rolling Rivers! Let’s check it out!

What Is It?

Roll & Write – Each round, players will roll the central dice and their personal dice, and determine which animals to collect on their tally sheets.

Set Collection / Contract Completion – As players collect sets of wildlife, they can “spend” them to complete habitats which will let them fill in parts of their environment sheet, according to the rules of that particular sheet.

Resource Management – Players have to manage their wildlife, as they don’t know what they’ll need for future habitat cards, and their nature tokens, to be able to manipulate dice through dice actions.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 4 Players – Solo is a nice play with some fun options; multiplayer is heavily simultaneous, so it’s good at any count
  • Ages 10 & Up / Family-Weight Fans – Pretty simple rules overall (small learning curve with the more intricate maps); family version rules if you need it lighter.
  • Fans of roll and write games, set collection, contract fulfillment, and variable gameplay
  • Fans of Cascadia looking for a twist on the original

Variants

Maps – There are 4 different maps to choose from which vary how players fill in the areas, based on the value of the habitat cards they complete. Map D plays the most closely to the original game since you fill in animals and score them similarly. – They all feel unique and offer good variety.

Family Mode – No special central die, only use beginner completion cards, and simplified dice actions – It’s okay to ease into the game, but I think environment sheet A is simple enough to learn the game from

Solo – Can play the same way as the normal game, going for best score, or use scenarios to determine special setup and win conditions – I personally wouldn’t play it without the scenarios as I prefer not to just “play for best score.” The scenarios are great to give you a goal, and change the game play to play.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice art and good graphic design
  • Good variety in gameplay with the different maps
  • Components – Nice quality dice, cards, and pads
  • Solo scenarios are great to vary solo play
  • No blocking players from completing habitats
  • Dice actions let you mitigate dice rolls
  • No turns / downtime
  • Doesn’t need a large play area

CONS

  • No real player interaction (unlike the original game where you compete for largest habitats)
  • Luck of the dice. If you spend nature tokens too early, you can’t mitigate much
  • I wish there were a few more completion cards, for added variety

Final Thoughts

I thought this game was a fine roll and write. Smooth gameplay and as long as you don’t mind a very “multi-player solitaire” game, then you’ll probably enjoy it. It sits close to Cascadia in theme, of course, and map D scores animals similarly, but it doesn’t have the added puzzle of trying to connect your habitats and compete for largest of each, which is missed. I personally prefer Cascadia because I think the tile laying aspect works better with the ecosystem theme, but this is a decent roll and write, so if you enjoy the genre, check it out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Randy Flynn
Artist – Beth Sobel
Publishers – AEG; Flatout Games
MSRP – $24.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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