Instant win glitch

It seems that if someone were to play the wookie card, they would immediately win the game, since the opponent would have his arms removed form his sockets. I propose the inclusion of a habitat called "Cloud City Room that makes that irritating noise all the time" in order to balance the game.

True. It does say, after all, that you should always "let the wookiee win."

Wookies are only broken once they're in spaceships -- I'm OK with them as long as I can outrun them. But with a move of 5, there's no way to escape!

Why is a Wookie from Star Wars in a game based on actual Wildlife? I thought the point of the game was to inspire children to love the things that exist and live in the world around them. I thought that children wishing and obsessing over things like fantasy creatures (Pokémon) was what started the project because they knew more about them then the real creatures.

In addition to what was said above aren’t there also legal/copy right issues involved?

Forbidding wrote:Why is a Wookie from Star Wars in a game based on actual Wildlife? I thought the point of the game was to inspire children to love the things that exist and live in the world around them. I thought that children wishing and obsessing over things like fantasy creatures (Pokémon) was what started the project because they knew more about them then the real creatures.

In addition to what was said above aren’t there also legal/copy right issues involved?

Oh, lighten up. As the card back says, even scientists aren't always serious.

To me it seems to defeat the purpose of Phylo and possibly violate cetain laws.

And if it needs to be played in space, how would the rest of the game play with that?

The card is there in jest (and also bait, to potentially lure folks to visit the site - which BTW has worked quite well - with some recent graphics submissions sent my way via email).

I recently gave a talk about Phylo and science literacy in general. Part of the discussion went over how difficult it is sometimes to explain a scientific technical concept when perhaps, focusing on a science culture aspect is most important (in this case, just how the scientific method works).

To ilustrate this concept, I discussed how difficult it is to explain "Chewbacca" to folks who have no idea who Chewbacca is (What do you say? He's a wookiee, he likes to pull off arms, he makes a certain sound, etc - doesn't really help the person trying to work out who he is). However, if you focus on the primary context (he's a character in a well known science fiction movie), he suddenly makes a lot more sense. One of my arguments in my talk, is that this focus on context is often more important than focusing on the technical details of any given science topic.

Anyway, to go with this discussion, I happened to have made a slide of a Wookiee phylo card, and it got a great response from the audience (I also managed to get the entire audience to make Wookiee sounds). Consequently, I thought it would be cool to put it up on the site.

As an aside, I was also hoping that it serves people know that we're open to having a little fun with the project as well.

Oh yeah, as far as copyright is concerned, there would be a strong case for this being under "fair use." If not, as a website we could easily remove the card if lawyers came a calling.

Additionally, if trouble does brew, we can always hope for a Streisand effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

If were going to include fictional things mine as well get into the cryptozoology and include mothman, chupacabra, and werewolf’s because I love em.

Although I'm still concerned as to the project going a little off track.

One joke card need not ruffle your skirt good sir. Most people realize a lighthearted jest when they see one.

Suggestion: Give the Wookiee card a back-design which has the "Phylo" logo with the circle-slash "NO!" symbol stamped over it in red, just to make it perfectly clear that it's not part of the real Phylo game. And if there are ever any other not-real Phylo cards, use the not-Phylo back design on them, too.

Cubist wrote:Suggestion: Give the Wookiee card a back-design which has the "Phylo" logo with the circle-slash "NO!" symbol stamped over it in red, just to make it perfectly clear that it's not part of the real Phylo game. And if there are ever any other not-real Phylo cards, use the not-Phylo back design on them, too.

Agreed -- they need some sort of mark. I'd be disinclined towards changing the card back because that makes printing them with others a bit more of a pain, because so far we've been thinking that the card backs would all be the same. Since the card faces are of course going to change anyway, maybe a semi-transparent "JOKE" watermark along the card face or something?

Suggestion: Give the Wookiee card a back-design which has the "Phylo" logo with the circle-slash "NO!" symbol stamped over it in red, just to make it perfectly clear that it's not part of the real Phylo game. And if there are ever any other not-real Phylo cards, use the not-Phylo back design on them, too.

I like this too. I'm not too worried about a few 'parody cards' but It'd be nice if they were marked from the others

Forbidding wrote:If were going to include fictional things mine as well get into the cryptozoology and include mothman, chupacabra, and werewolf’s because I love em.

Although I'm still concerned as to the project going a little off track.

I second this one. I want to include Jersey's Devil in my food chain!