Get ready for a journey back to 90,000 B.C., where a relentless ice age is rapidly approaching and the struggle for survival reaches its peak in Dominant Species! This epic game abstractly recreates the slow, yet inexorable, onset of a glacial winter and the battles creatures wage to adapt. Each player takes on the role of one of six major animal classes—mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid, or insect—starting in a fragile natural balance. But, as the saying goes, it's 'survival of the fittest' that dictates the rules here!

Through cunning action pawn placement, you'll strive to dominate as many different hexagonal terrain tiles as possible, activating powerful card effects. Furthermore, it's crucial to propagate your species to accumulate victory points and ensure your animal is crowned the Dominant Species. Actions like speciation, migration, and adaptation will be your tools in this process. The game culminates with the final ascent of the ice age, where the player with the most victory points celebrates supremacy. But you better hurry, because it's getting mighty cold!

Throughout the game, large hexagonal tiles form a dynamic map of prehistoric Earth, while smaller tundra tiles are added, transforming the terrain into ice. Action pawns are the engine of the game, allowing you to perform various strategic actions. During the planning phase, you place your pawns on the action display, which will be activated in the execution phase. The goal is always to enhance your species' survivability while simultaneously hindering your opponents', all while collecting valuable victory points. Special cards offer unique abilities or recurring point gains. Species cubes and element disks are added to, moved around in, and removed from the board, representing the evolution of the ecosystem. In the end, a final scoring of each tile determines who is the true king of the glacial jungle.