Publisher(s) Matter Group Age range 8 + Playing time | Players 2 Setup time 1–5 minutes | |
Designer(s) Amy Tucker
Tyler Bielman | ||
Xeko is a collectible card game revolving around endangered species. It was launched on Earthday 2006. It won the Creative Child Magazine 2006 Toy of the Year Award and the National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval in its first year. Four "Mission" sets have been released. Mission: Costa Rica and Mission: Madagascar, based on biodiversity hotspots were released first. Mission: Indonesia, was released in 2007, with the final release, Mission: China, was released July 19, 2008. A total of thirty more missions were planned but never developed.
Contents
Xeko was invented by Amy Tucker and designed by Tyler Bielman, a Seattle-based game designer. "Xeko is dedicated to a bright green future and preserving some of our planet's greatest riches".
In addition to attempting to raise awareness using the game itself, Matter Group (the company that produces Xeko) has the following programs and processes in place:
In 2009, Xeko was sold to an Atlanta game studio, Good Egg Studios, and merged with the Gaming for Good virtual world. As of September 2010, the official Xeko website was closed and no reopening date has been posted. Reports have surfaced that Good Egg Studios has gone out of business and Xeko was acquired by Oomba. Oomba later raised $250,000 from Kickstarter, there has been no such implementation and the project appears to have been dropped.
Artwork
As with many trading card games, the card art is drawn by a variety of different artists with different styles. The card artists include Michel Gagné, Travis Kotzebue, BJ Nartker, and others. Six limited print sketch cards are also available and can only be obtained in Starter Decks.
Card types
The following four types of cards are featured in the game:
Each card is also assigned a rarity rating of one to four, one being the most common and four being the rarest. In the Xeko nomenclature, these are Common, Rare, Endangered, and Vanishing. The rarity of a card can be checked at a glance by counting the dots the bottom right-hand corner.
Next to the rarity rating is a two-letter abbreviation that designates the edition in which the card was released, as follows:
MM = Madagascar, CR = Costa Rica, IN = Indonesia, CH = China
Gameplay
Xeko being a game geared around particularity hot spots representing actual location around the globe. Involves using the cards you draw throughout the game to create an ecosystem interconnected by different colors found around the rim of the cards. Turns are representative of a Night - Day cycle, in which each player adds elements to the overall ecosystem through new species or other effect cards. This adding of species triggers a turf wars in which the two connected species "battle". Unlike other games in most cases neither of the species dies. Instead the loser of the turf war has to discard cards from the top of their deck. The game ends when one play's deck has no more cards, and the winner is chosen by whomever possesses the most eco-points at the end of the game.