Bios: Genesis - Cake is Life

I had been wanting to make a boardgame cake for quite a while, trying to find something recognisable that would work as a cake. So, of course, it was only a matter of time until I ended up caking my favourite boardgame: Bios: Genesis by Phil Eklund (Bios: Genesis on Sierre Madre Games; Bios: Genesis on boardgamegeek.com).

The Refugium Card, the box, Bionts in a bag, Catalyst disks, and the Manna cubes

The game which is set in precambrian earth when cute little molecules combined to create the first forms of life. These events take place in different suitable locations, so-called Refugia, represented by large square cards. Choosing one Refugium of the many interesting cards was one of the hardest parts of making this cake.

The Clay Mound Refugium: chocolate brownie cake with dark chocolate ganache and fondant

The cards are the places where the fun happens, but for the action to take place, you need a few components, the magic molecules basic building blocks of life that happily wiggle around and then self-organise and snap together to form a single-celled life-form (but that is a story for another cake).

The different types of Manna, represented by cubes of different colour.

The Bionts, the building blocks of life controlled by the players.

 The real game fits into a rather small and inconspicuous box, which might trick you into believing that this is a rather harmless travel game. It is not. The level of complexity and abstraction is mindblowing.

A comparison of cake and original game.