Quirks: the 1980 board game equivalent of Spore

by Kevin Kelly { Jun 16th 2008 at 8:15PM }

As you know, we sometimes like to cut the wires and take things Off the Grid, which can lead to bouts of surfing through websites like BoardGameGeek until 5 in the morning ... allegedly ...

However, all of that browsing paid off in spades when we stumbled across Quirks, a board game from the magical year of 1980. Looks a bit familiar, doesn't it? We wonder if Will Wright ever sat down with this back in the day. He would have been around 20 years old when it came out, and he's admittedly a huge fan of board and strategy games, so you do the math. Find out more about genetic manipulation in the 80s after the break (spoiler: it wasn't all big hair, bangle bracelets, and friendship pins).

Quirks is an evolution-based game of "Un-natural Selection!" as the box top states. One to four players form bizarre plants and animals in this card game, and have to keep adapting them so they can survive in different climates and against encounters with other "Quirks". Think something along the lines of Go Fish meets a policeman's ident-i-kit and you've got Quirks. We found a single copy of this on eBay this morning, and we're planning a Joystiq Quirk Off during E3. Stay tuned for a full report on the game when it arrives.

Tags: Board Games, Off the Grid, Quirks, Spore, Will Wright

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rokobungi @ Jun 16th 2008 8:40PM

"We found a single copy of this on eBay this morning,"

and now that we purchased it,no one else will be able to find a copy ha ha..

damn you!

WiiFTW @ Jun 16th 2008 8:46PM

SPORE DEMO RELEASE DATE BORKED (IN 1980)

colin @ Jun 16th 2008 8:56PM

i know i'm just going to get voted down by all the swoomube fanboys, but i just don't see how a swoomube could survive ... an oomube maybe, but definitely not a swoomube.

flame on !!!

Titanium_Orchid @ Jun 16th 2008 9:21PM

Seaweed top gathers light

Mushroom body releases spores for reproduction

Tuber bottom gathers water

Durr.

Tommy @ Jun 16th 2008 9:46PM

This is pretty much exactly what Sim-Life was like, you really don't need to look any farther than that to see a big influence for spore.

ComradeTrotskii @ Jun 16th 2008 9:47PM

I'm sure I remember playing this, or a variant of it, at 'Beavers' (A sort of Hitler Youth organisation here in the UK) when I was a little younger, which was certainly better than playing 'Beetle'.

Duo @ Jun 16th 2008 9:51PM

You went to a Hitler Youth organization, and now you're a self-professed Comrade"?

They can't have done their job very well.

website design @ Jun 17th 2008 3:35AM

I saw the picture and immediately thought of SimLife (also by Maxis).

JohnMazz @ Jun 17th 2008 10:36AM

Same here. SimLife used an almost identicle species creator from what I can tell. SimLife was really a great game, but I was a bit too young to do very well in games, same with SimCity, I'd always get run out of town as Mayor by an angry crowed (led by my mother). My favorite was SimAnt, loved that game, and all the sim games...