How to play

A card game you grow: each card is a kind of life, yours when your world evolves it. New to card games? Start at 1.

1 · Reading a card

Point at a number to see that part of the card.

12 34 56 78 9

Name. What this kind of life is called.
Cost, in food. What you pay to put it on the table. This one costs 5. Big, warm-blooded and big-brained bodies cost more, as they do to feed in the sim.
The picture. Drawn by the game from the body its recipe builds.
Its line and where it lives. The line is the card's colour (here the Insect line, gold). A deck uses one or two lines.
Metal. How hard it is to evolve: bronze, silver, gold, ruby. Rarer metals cost more of your deck's budget (tab 8).
Abilities. Its keywords and special rules. Sea Scorpion has Armour 1 (every hit on it is 1 smaller), Ambush and Tide. Tab 4 explains the keywords.
The recipe. What life in your world must evolve for you to get this card (tab 7).
Attack / Defence. 5 / 3: it deals 5 damage in a fight, and dies when it takes 3 or more in one turn.
Card number. Its place in the set (INS-010: Insect line, card 10).

2 · Your turn, step by step

You and the computer each start with 20 life and 5 cards in hand. You take turns. Each of your turns goes like this:

1

🃏

Draw a cardTake the top card of your deck into your hand. (Whoever goes first skips this on the very first turn.)

2

🍖

Your food growsYou have 1 more food than last turn, up to 10, and it fills up again. Turn 1: 1 food. Turn 3: 3 food.

turn 3

3

🐾

Play creaturesPay their cost from your food. Click a card in your hand to play it. At most 7 creatures each on the table.

4

⚔

AttackPick which of your creatures attack. A creature can't attack on the turn it was played: it is new to the place.

5

✋

End your turnDamage on creatures heals. Now it is the other side's turn.

Example, your turn 3. You have 3 food. In your hand: Shore Trilobite (cost 1) and Ground Beetle (cost 2). 1 + 2 = 3, so you can play both:

+

= 3 food

Next turn you will have 4 food, and both of them can attack.

3 · Fighting

Your attackers go at the other player. For each attacker, the other player may put one of their creatures in the way: a blocker.

Not blocked: the attacker's attack comes off the other player's life.
Blocked: the two fight. Each deals its attack to the other. A creature that takes at least its defence in damage dies. Damage heals at the end of the turn.

Example. Your Sea Scorpion (5 / 3) attacks. The other player blocks with Plated Grazer (1 / 4, Armour 2).

⚔

Sea Scorpion hits for 5. Plated Grazer's Armour 2 takes 2 off: it takes 3. Its defence is 4, so it lives.
Plated Grazer hits back for 1. Sea Scorpion's Armour 1 takes 1 off: it takes 0.
Both live, and no damage reaches the player. Armour wins this one: block a big hitter with a tough shell.

When the computer attacks you, the table asks you to block: click your creature, then the attacker it should stop.

The graveyard

Each side has a graveyard beside its deck: the face-up pile with a number on it. A creature that dies goes there, and so does every card once it has been played (a card that is not a creature does its work and is gone). Click a graveyard to spread it out and see every card in it, newest first; the number on the corner says how many cards it holds, and pointing at it says how many creatures died. Young and other tokens made in a match vanish when they die. A few cards read the graveyard: Regrow sends a creature back to your hand the first time it dies; Filter brings back a cheap card (cost 2 or less) from your graveyard when it is played; some cards return a creature of their own kind from it (a School fish, a plant, shelled creatures), and some count what lies there. A few cards make the other side throw a card from its hand onto its graveyard.

4 · Keywords that work in matches now

FlightOnly creatures with Flight or Reach can block it. Moths, birds, bats.

VenomAny damage it deals kills, unless the other has Armour 2 or more. A small spider can kill a giant.

Armour N / Shell NEvery hit on it is N smaller.

Hive, Pack, School, Flock, Herd+1 attack for each other creature of yours with the same word, up to +3. Worker: +1 food a turn, never attacks.

Root N, FarmRoot N: N more food every turn. Farm: +1 food. Plants feed your deck.

Reach	Can block creatures with Flight.
Trample	Damage beyond what kills its blocker goes on to the player.
Wall	Never attacks: it is there to block.
Rot	+1 food whenever any creature dies.
Speak	Draw a card when it is played.
Bask	+1 attack once it has been on the table a turn.
Thorns N	Whatever fights it takes N.
Molt, Cyst	The first time it would die, it lives on instead.
Brood N	When it dies, N young (1 / 1) take its place.

Other abilities are printed on the cards and will come into matches as they are built. A card with no attack / defence (an event) can't be played yet.

5 · Winning

❤

Bring them to 0 lifeBoth sides start at 20. Get theirs to 0 and you win.

📭

Or let them run outA player who has to draw from an empty deck loses.

🏆

What a win is worthAgainst the computer: practice, for the fun and the bragging. Against other players: a card can be won or lost in a wager, and an Original you lost can be won back. (Matches between players are not built yet.)

Limits

At most 7 creatures each on the table.
Food at most 10.
Nothing costs less than 1 (young from Brood are free).
Group bonuses (Hive, Pack, School, Flock, Herd) at most +3.

Tips for a first match

Play something every turn: spend your food.
Cheap creatures early, big ones once your food has grown.
Don't throw a small creature in front of a big attacker unless it saves you a lot of life, or it has Venom or Armour.

6 · Your deck

🂠

30 cardsExactly 30 to play. Each card once.

🎨

One or two coloursCards from one or two lines.

🪙

20 metal pointsRuby 3, gold 2, silver 1, bronze 0. So most of a deck is bronze and silver, with a few strong gold and ruby cards.

In the game, open Cards, then 🛠 Deck builder: pick how you want to play (Swarm, Big beasts, Fortress, Venom, Sky, Growth, Deep sea, Balanced) and it builds 30 from the cards you own. No cards yet? ▶ PLAY lends you a starter deck for any line.

7 · Getting cards

Cards can't be bought. Each card has a recipe (number 7 on the card): a body plan, a way of living, a place. When a species in your own world evolves to match it, you discover the card, and it is yours.

Only natural worlds earn cards: no Creator weights, no pushed lines, world dials left as nature set them. The sign at the top of the game says whether your world is earning.
Only life that evolves while you play counts: a world's old life does not hand out cards.
More worlds, and different kinds of places, find more of the 768 cards.
Some cards are Never seen on Earth: bodies Earth never made but the sim can (an armoured flier, an air-breathing octopus).

8 · Metals and Originals

Bronzeeasy to evolve · 0 pointsSilver1 pointGold2 pointsRubyrare · 3 points

A ruby is a new trick or a strong finisher, never just the same card with bigger numbers, and every line can win with bronze and silver alone.

A card your own world evolved is an Original: it glows gold and gets +0 / +1 while you hold it. If it ever leaves you, the glow fades; it can be restored with fossils of its kind found in your worlds (bronze 1, silver 2, gold 3, ruby 5).

Trading and wagers are not built yet.