Ekosi

Ekosi is the card game played by the characters in the upcoming indie video game Freeborn (formerly Luckless Seven). As a reward for the more generous supporters of the game's Kickstarter campaign, physical Ekosi cards were produced.

Ekosi plays very similarly to Blackjack. Each player is dealt cards by the dealer with the goal of getting as close to a combined value of 20 as possible without going over. Players will either "Hit" or "Stand" on their turn until both players "Stand" or one player ends their turn with a combined value greater than 20, also known as a "Bust". If both players "Stand" at the same total, it is considered a tie and no points are awarded that round.

The key difference in Ekosi is that players also have cards in their hands that can be used to alter their point total during their turn. There are four different color cards; green, blue, red and yellow. Green cards are dealt by the dealer and always add to your point total each round. Blue cards can be played from your hand to increase your point total. Red cards can be played from your hand to decrease your point total. Yellow cards can be played from your hand and have special properties such as doubling the last card dealt or allowing you to break a tie.

A standard Ekosi deck is made up of 72 cards. There are 40 green cards which are separated and shuffled to become the Dealer's draw pile. The remaining cards are shuffled and become the players' hand draw pile. If you are just learning the basics, it is recommended to remove all the yellow cards prior to shuffling the players' hand draw pile. Once you are comfortable with the core features of Ekosi, you can add the yellow cards in a future game. This helps to keep learning Ekosi from becoming too intimidating or confusing.