John Clowdus, designer of Mezo, The North, and Omen: A Reign of War among others, has a line of Small Box Games on his website which people can order directly. All these small games are for 2 players except one: Pocket Galapagos.
Pocket Galapagos is a solitaire card game in which you are trying to keep the ecosystem of an island in the Galapagos in balance. It consists of 72 double-sided and multi-use cards. On each turn, you draw a hand of 5 cards and decide how to best play them in order to manage animal populations, use the animals' abilities and prevent the spread of invasive species.
You lose the game if 2 of the indigenous populations go down to zero, or if 3 of the same species are the invasive species before the end of the 10th round. The designer's shop doesn't take pre-orders at this time but -according to a thread on BGG- it soon will, so keep an eye out for it if you're interested.
Ah, I've never played any of his games. I suspect you won't like this one either, it seems to be as you describe. 😄
That's interesting! I really like the theme of managing ecosystems and I don't know any solo with that theme (except the BIOS by Eklund perhaps?).
However, I tend not to like Clowdus' designs, with a lot of effect-specific cards "discard X cards to draw Y cards and put Z cards in play doing W; or engage to perform XX on card N". By the time I have figured out how the card could be used in a smart way, I already have lost any interest for the game.
Still I'll check it. Tempting theme. Thanks for the news!