A trading card game / Absurd ecosystems

A small world.
A wild game.

Plants become infrastructure. Animals become food and fighters. You are a human Zoowalker, an alien intelligence from the animals’ perspective, gathering material for a PhD in Zoowalkery.

Explore the game

01 / How it works

Your food chain
is your strategy.

Build an ecosystem.
Advance a questionable thesis.

01

Establish resources

Kelp, Bush, Tree, and Fungi support your ecosystem. Each animal has requirements that shape when and how it can enter play.

02

Feed the next link

Consume your own animals to invoke larger ones. Diet and Yield turn the food web into an economy: a strong fighter may also be a valuable meal.

03

Intervene as the alien

Offer original Apex animals to advance a face-up sequence of Alien interventions. The human researcher is part of this world’s absurdity.

02 / Winning the game

Three paths
to finish your research.

01

Collect specimens

Reach 40 Corpse Value in your scored research collection.

02

Empty their Zoo

Deplete the opponent’s Main Deck, known as their Zoo.

03

Complete the sequence

Finish the Alien sequence and sacrifice an Apex to its final win token.

Current playtesting

Tundra forests.
Arctic oceans.

The project includes paper card definitions, a card gallery, and a browser sandbox with a CPU opponent. Four current starters explore Bears, Whales, Herbivores, and Socialité food webs.

Rules and balance are still evolving. The current sandbox and offline package live in the project workspace; this page introduces the game.

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