There are three types of animal in VIXIV. We decided the best way to differentiate our species would be in their overarching diets. Since this is a game of food chains it made sense. So we have Herbivores, Carnivores, and Omnivores.
VIXIV is a strategic board game I've been developing with a small team of wildlife nerds for over 2 years. We wanted to develop a game that would be fun to play while still teaching real world ecology. The kickstarter is starting on January 7th and we could use your help to get the word out and make this a success! Please reblog and feel free to ask me questions about this game as we get closer to the launch!
Each of these cards are played physically from your hand like many trading card games, but that is as far as we wanted the similarities to go. Once placed these card behave more like territories in a game of risk.
It would have been easy to adopt a rock paper scissors style of play with these cards, but we wanted something more visually and strategically challenging. To do this we opted to make each card develop populations in different ways.
Herbivores generate a population token (point) evenly around the card each turn. These cards need plenty of space on the board and time to develop these points, but they can generate them reliably.
Carnivores can only consume other tokens by stacking their own tokens on top once per turn. This means they must be placed on top of or directly beside existing cards or tokens that have not already been consumed by another carnivore or omnivore. They don't generate a lot of points themselves, but they can hinder the herbivores and require little space so long as other carnivores aren't already nearby.
Omnivores on the other hand can be played as either a carnivore or an herbivore. They can both place tokens on open space or consume other tokens already in play. The catch is they can only do it immediately when played. They may only play 3+ their tier tokens and must play them immediately when the card is played. If their tokens are lost, they do not generate more. This makes them great as quick game changers and wild cards.
Again if you have any questions about this game, please send me a message, I'd be happy to talk more about it!