Entomologists társasjáték

Angol leírás

Entomologists is a two-player card game in which you play as real historical entomologists racing to catalog new species of insects. On your turn you take exactly one action: buy a card from a row of ten ("the forest," where cards further from the start cost more), take the overstepped cards for free, play a cage, release insects for resources, upgrade your hand size, or capture a set of matching insects in an empty cage.

Every species has its own scoring value and a power that triggers the moment you capture it — some give you extra turns, some let you steal resources from your opponent, some lower the cost of everything you buy afterward. Beyond the shared rules, each player can choose to play as one of several real naturalists from history, each with a signature power inspired by their actual work: Maria Sibylla Merian, who traveled to Suriname to draw insects alongside the plants they fed on, lets you peek at two metamorphosis cards instead of one; Carl Linnaeus, inventor of binomial nomenclature, can complete a capture with fewer insects than usual; Ulisse Aldrovandi, whose 1602 De Animalibus Insectis was the first treatise devoted entirely to insects, can slot new cards into cages that are already closed; Charles Darwin, who once famously held a beetle in his mouth because both his hands were already full, can keep a few extra beetles outside his hand limit.

Predators — birds, reptiles, rodents — let you sacrifice insects from your hand to steal resources from your rival, and hand space is tight enough that timing matters: is it better to capture now and free up room, or hold out for a bigger set and a stronger trigger later?

The game ends the moment the deck runs dry and the forest can no longer be refilled. Points come from captured insects, bonus cage cards (flowers, fruits, fungi), end-of-game character powers, and the largest single cage — plus a small bonus for uncaptured species still sitting in your hand.

Each of the eleven species is illustrated after a real insect, from the common seven-spot ladybird to the critically rare Lord Howe Island stick insect (only 3 copies in the deck).

—description from the designer