Ecologies: Solar System – Astrobiology Strategy Card Game

Build an ecosystem where no ecosystem has been found before.

Ecologies: Solar System takes the food-web-building concept of Ecologies beyond Earth, exploring one enormous question:

What would life need to survive elsewhere in our solar system?

Across 7 celestial bodies, players build speculative food webs using 78 unique organism and Life Requirement cards, considering the conditions that could make life possible in dramatically different environments.

Created using real science and in collaboration with a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory educator, the game imagines forms of life that may have existed—or might someday exist—within our solar system. Rather than presenting those imagined organisms as scientific fact, Solar System uses what we know about biology and planetary environments as the starting point for speculation.

Designed by a biology teacher, it brings ecology and astrobiology together in a strategy game about what living things need, how ecosystems function, and just how strange life might become when Earth is no longer part of the equation.

Build Life Beyond Earth

Explore 7 celestial bodies and the very different conditions found across our solar system.

Build speculative food webs by considering how organisms might survive and interact in environments beyond Earth.

Work with Life Requirement cards that bring the necessities and constraints of living systems into your developing ecologies.

Create healthy ecosystems as you balance the relationships necessary for your imagined life to survive.

Explore astrobiology through play, using established science as the foundation for asking questions to which we don't yet have all the answers.

Three Ways to Play

Standard Mode offers the complete strategic game for ages 12+.

Simplified Mode makes the game accessible to younger players ages 8+ with included simplified rules.

Single Player Mode lets you explore the possibilities of extraterrestrial ecology on your own.

Why We Love It

It distinguishes science from speculation. We know a great deal about what life on Earth requires and increasingly more about the environments elsewhere in our solar system. What we don't know is whether life exists there. Solar System turns that uncertainty into the interesting part.

Astrobiology is a fantastic game problem. Instead of simply asking what lives here?, you're considering the conditions that would allow something to live there at all.

The Life Requirement cards change the conversation. Building an ecosystem isn't only about connecting organisms; the environment itself places demands on what could survive.

Scientists don't have all the answers yet. That's a feature, not a flaw. The game gives players a framework for imagining possibilities while keeping real science underneath the speculation.

It brings serious science to game night. Designed by a biology teacher and developed in collaboration with a NASA JPL educator, it offers plenty to investigate without requiring the experience to feel like an assignment.

What’s Inside

108 cards
78 unique organism & Life Requirement cards
7 celestial bodies
Standard, Simplified & Single Player modes
Scientific artwork

Game Details

Players: 1–6
Age: 12+ with standard rules; 8+ with simplified rules
Play time: 60–90 minutes
Style: Astrobiology strategy card game
Focus: Food webs, life requirements & potential extraterrestrial ecosystems
Setting: 7 celestial bodies in our solar system
Designed by: A biology teacher
Developed with: A NASA JPL educator

The science is real. The ecosystems are possibilities.