This post is for those who have always wondered when their Pokemon card playing skills would be finally used for good and not evil.

Well, now it can be used for the Phylomon project. You know, the one where we're hoping we can guide an open source project into a free and massive card collecting game that is fun and even perchance (oh no, here it comes...) educational.

Now that we're at a stage where we're confident that the mechanics of obtaining images is sound (check out the submissions pool here, and the few from this pool that we've already lined up for beta testing as shown below), we're ready to move onto other crucial components of the project.

i-21a06febb0464b78cb743203da83596e-flickrcardqueue.jpg

Namely gameplay and content on the card.

In many ways, we think these need to develop in tandem, and at this point, I'm gathering a group of scientist types who will ultimately act as science editors in the project (i.e. they will play a key role in determining the type of content on the cards).

However, we realize (and as is obviously clear in the many comments garnered at various places), that the game mechanics are just as, if not the most, important role in this project. This, we feel confident we can deliver, if only because the phylomon project is very much about being an open source project, and one that has the intent to include new ideas as they come along.

Still, it would be nice to get some of those game design juices flowing early and in earnest. With that, I'm hoping there are folks out there who will provide whatever feedback they want (in the comments, or ideally at this phylomon forum) - maybe even the odd person going full out and designing an actual game.

If it helps, we've even made a handy dandy idea sheet for folks to scrawl notes all over (see below and available as a pdf here). Anyway, if this sounds interesting, do participate, or at the very least, spread the word via twitter, your blog, facebook, etc.

i-e2d93b3b15cdfba613d510006cf64dab-phylomonideasheet.gif

More like this

If so, you should join this facebook group. Or to discuss further, please go to http://friendfeed.com/phylomon. Here's part of what started this group and project: a friend of mine passed on this "letter to Santa:" It quite nicely demonstrates an issue with advocates of biodiversity - that is,…
@dnghub Twitter Feed Happy Biodiversity Day! Well, it's been about 5 weeks, and the Phylo project is close to 100 cards, all ready for free printing. As well, a set of rules is now available that is polished enough to go through some beta testing. Today, we even have an "Oil Spill" card, and I'd…
This is straight from the main page: Things are humming along! We have over 100 images submitted, 30 or so queued up for card production, and over 40 folks signed up on the forum (in fact, one set of rules is arguably close to beta testing). The response has been simply wonderful, and these…
Don't you think it's twisted that so many kids know what this creature is, but so few can go about naming the birds in their backyard? - - - Well, I had briefly talked about this before, more as a whimsical train of thought, but there you have it - we're going to give it a go. Not sure what I'm…

What a BRILLIANT idea!

I do worry about the choice of the non-commercial clause, though -- largely because "non-commercial" is so incredibly poorly defined. I've come to believe, over time, that it's a faulty license, and would encourage the folks at Phylomon to reconsider.

Like, for instance, here's a question: what software license will the gameplay engine fall under? It will almost certainly be open source, I would think -- and open source software has long since outgrown its non-commercial restrictions. What happens when you can distribute the game engine with every Linux distro, but can distribute *none* of the cards because they are licensed non-commercial? It's a problem.

Still, the idea is crazy brilliant.