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[Draco18s]

I got to playtest Phylo this weekend.  It's an odd card game (it'd be of the collectible type if it wasn't licensed under Creative Commons) where you have to build an ecosystem that is more stable than your opponents.  Harder to play cards are worth more points at the end of the game.

The rules are pretty well balanced, though not all of the cards exist yet (the scientists working on the project keep forgetting to include stuff...like Ocean/Desert/Tundra biome plants for the herbivores to eat, or Wind so certain plants can "spread" and move around on the field).  But other than a little abstraction, its pretty scientifically accurate (abstraction example: squirrels are omnivorous, meaning they can eat meat which means you can have them survive in a biome by eating pigeons...which in turn feed off of Paper Birtch trees).

Take a look, print your own cards, try it out.

[beorn080]

This card game vaguely reminds me of a game I played long ago, called Krill. Pretty much, you picked a card in your had and you ate your way through the others hands, so if you picked something like a Killer Whale, you were top of the chain, but the death and debris card killed you. Was fun, until I picked the card that ate the death card and was only eaten by like two other cards.

This seems fun, and I'd give it a shot if there were an online component.

[Soulwynd]

I demand online play!

[Duke 2.0]

 I'm sure one could do some magic with a card battle module for VASSAL and saving all these cards to the required files.

[ductape]

i wish there were'nt cards with the "invasive" attribute. Invasive Biology is in fact psuedo-science and my initial interest in the game was a way to illustrate concepts such as that. Intact ecosystems cannot be invaded.

I will have to get on the forum and talk to these folks.

[Draco18s]

I will have to get on the forum and talk to these folks.

Go for it.

Likely though its a game mechanic abstraction, but you're free to let them know.

[Deadmeat1471]

http://www.educationallearninggames.com/science-games-krill-a-whale-of-a-game.asp

Krill.

[beorn080]

http://www.educationallearninggames.com/science-games-krill-a-whale-of-a-game.asp

Krill.

Yep, that was it. Good fun.

i wish there were'nt cards with the "invasive" attribute. Invasive Biology is in fact psuedo-science and my initial interest in the game was a way to illustrate concepts such as that. Intact ecosystems cannot be invaded.

I will have to get on the forum and talk to these folks.

There are some invasive flora and fauna, but half is manmade and the other half invades urban areas. I recall an interview I heard a couple weeks ago where they said that I think it was Chicago was one of the greenest cities due to all the abandoned lots and buildings being overrun with "weeds" which aren't really weeds since they displace nothing.

The man made ones are those lovely genetically sterile crops that somehow crossbreed with natural plants, making the next generation sterile. They have seed stores of unmodified plants stored up near the Arctic in case it gets out of control.

[Bluerobin]

(Avoiding the invasive debate entirely...) I think this could actually be really fun, but it needs some time to develop. Going through the list of cards and a little bit on the forum I realized that there just aren't enough cards yet. It's not even possible to build up a food chain on each terrain type yet. It could be fun to just spend some time making cards though. I really like the dominoes-like gameplay they've got going so far, too.

[warhammer651]

this looks rather intriguing. I'd like to give it a shot, but no one near me seems willing to try this out.

[Bluerobin]

I'm sure one could do some magic with a card battle module for VASSAL and saving all these cards to the required files.

It definitely looks possible. My main concern is that it could get annoying to keep up with adding cards as they're released. I guess we could just add cards as people wanted to use them. Oh, also the rules are still changing on a regular basis, but it looks like adding rules to a module just makes it more complicated anyway, so as long as we know what's going on we just need to module to know how to play cards (not whether they're legitimate plays).

[Draco18s]

I think this could actually be really fun, but it needs some time to develop.

Definitely.  Its something to keep an eye on.  Heck, they didn't even have the "Home" tiles printed when I played it because someone decided the art needed to be re-done the morning before the demonstrator left for the convention I was at.

They were basically looking for some early-development feedback and watch a few games by random people (one of the demonstrators wrote down something like, "used eco-disaster cards out of spite" because I and my opponent hit each other with a flood/cold snap/drought six turns in a row, each time nearly annihilating the whole board--she said she'd be surprised if our game ended with scores above 30, though it did end something like 74-40 as we had both run out of devastation cards).

[quinnr]

Definitely watching this. Looks like several people are trying to get it working online. Someone had the right idea, and was making a Lackey plugin. Lackey is definitely awesome.

[quinnr]

It has a Lackey Plugin now...pretty cool!

[Evilgrim]

It has a Lackey Plugin now...pretty cool!

*Doesn't know what Lackey is*
*Assumes it's something to do with firefox*

*Grumble*