Microvores is a 2-4 player game in which players assume the role of a microorganism, and must choose to seek out food, avoid toxins, attack other players, evolve, mutate, or subdivide during their turn. The winner is the player who had the last microbe alive, or is the first player to begin their turn with 5 microbes.
In addition to the beginning and ending administrative phases of each player's turn, the 3 key phases are the Metabolism Phase, the Drift Phase, and the Action Phase. During the Metabolism Phase, the player must choose to pay food or take damage to fuel their turn's activity. The Drift Phase involves randomly determining where to place food, toxins, and special particles on the game board available for all players to consume. The Action Phase allows players to choose one action: Hunting & Gathering (includes moving, eating, and attacking), Evolving, Mutating, OR Subdividing.
Evolving costs a player 3 food, but allows them to draw an evolution card at random which grants their microbe(s) abilities, possibly to move further, attack harder, and/or have some other unique ability. Mutating costs a player 4 food (and one evolution - if any), but it increases the total number of evolution cards a player can have in play, the base movement, and the base damage of the player's microbe(s). Mutation also allows some damage to be healed. Subdividing costs a player 5 food per subdivision, but each subdivision creates a new microbe on the board for the player, allowing them alternate start locations each turn, an extra life should a microbe be destroyed, and moves the player closer to a win condition.