Goop vs. Goop

Board games aren’t always very good at themes. Actual themes, as in underlying messages, not “themes,” the settings that appear in a game’s artwork. One of the hobby’s essential exceptions was Sol: Last Days of a Star. Set in some distant future, players were asked to harvest their dying star’s last embers to propel an ark into the great beyond, only to realize that their efforts were hastening the same solar death they were striving to outrun. Part climate change parable, part meditation on thermodynamics, Sol was not only playable, it was a genuine effort at using gameplay to tell a worthwhile story. Now Ryan Spangler, one of Sol’s three creators, is back with Organism. Where Sol propelled itself outward, Organism utilizes the smallest possible lens to zoom all the way down. In a way, its diminutive subject matter is even more meaningful than Sol’s space opera. I’m speaking, of course, about the building blocks of life. My goopy guys versus your goopy gals. What are the smallest…