Eco Circle

Eco Circle is a flip-and-write game in which players must strategically place different animals and creatures on their map to create sustainable biodiversity. On a turn, a card is revealed depicting one type of organism: a tiger, bull, chicken, worm, grass or bacteria. Then players must draw that animal on their player sheet.

Just like real-world ecology, the landscape on which you're drawing has a hierarchical food chain, where tigers eat chickens, and chickens eat worms, etc. While ensuring the survival of some animals will help you score points, players are not necessarily penalized if, for example, they get a chicken killed by a tiger. In fact, the microscopic organisms you place are meant to decompose carrion, which helps plants grow.

The ultimate objective of the game is to build a harmonious and diverse ecosystem devoid of intraspecies competition. Simply put, you don't want to have the same creatures next to each other on your hex map. At the end of the game, players score equal to number of full sets of organisms they have thrived on their land.

While Eco Circle is largely a solitaire affair, it's actually unlike your typical flip-and-write and feels more like a larger tile-placement game, akin to some powerhouse names like Calico and Cascadia. The spatial puzzle has players pushing their luck with where to place their animals, which animals to sacrifice. The randomness of the draw might be irritating to some, but the game makes up for with its delightful tension.

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只玩過基本規則，遊戲的主要目標就是盡可能的讓畫上去的生物不要被其他的生物吃掉，然後盡可能把同物種的生物分開來避免競爭。遊戲本身沒什麼大問題，平衡做的也不錯，就是玩起來不怎麼有趣，單以基礎規則來說重玩性不高。

Bought in Taiwan at Barker Street Board Games. Flexible player count and variety of maps keeps it interesting, each game is relatively short and although there is a drawing element, everyone can adapt to their own style. Works well with kids also!