Still water. A dragonfly stitches the air above the lily pads, and a frog settles in to watch. Symbiosis is a pocket-sized card game about raising the most prosperous pond in the region — designed by Jérémy and Christelle Partinico, first published by Subverti in 2025 and now in English from Hachette Boardgames. Two to four players each tend a pond of eight face-down cards, two rows of four. Each turn you swap a card from the shared river into your own water, and one by one your frogs, snails, dragonflies and koi come to light. The catch lives at the edges: your centre cards score your own pond, but the left and right columns score your neighbours’ ponds. Nothing here thrives alone — and within a quarter of an hour, the whole pond is face up.
🎶 The Soundtrack — Songs from Beneath the Lily Pads
Three long-form pieces, about forty minutes in all, drift across the water — gentle, warm and unhurried, made to sit beneath a whole evening of quick games. Bubbling synths, soft marimba and lush natural textures turn your table into a calm wetland where every voice has its place.
- Sunlit Shallows — The pond at its brightest. Bubbling synths rise like air escaping from the mud, carried on an easy downtempo pulse — eco electronica with a green heart. It is the sound of a pond in full swing: every creature busy, and nothing in a hurry.
- Koi Beneath the Lily Pads — Below the surface, everything slows. Soft marimba notes fall like drops onto still water while warm pads spread out beneath them, gentle and aquatic. A quiet, glassy piece for the moment you study the river and wonder which card your neighbour is waiting for.
- Chorus in the Reeds — Evening gathers at the water’s edge. A lush nature-ambient groove moves through the reeds, with the frogs woven into its texture and a shimmer hanging over everything like late light on the pond. The whole ecosystem, finally in harmony — the last cards turning over, every creature finding its place.
🎨 The Art — A Watercolour Pond
The AI-generated artwork reads like a page from a storybook, painted in soft watercolour with fine ink lines and a gentle paper grain. Most scenes are cut right through the waterline: above it, lily pads, pink water lilies, reeds and cattails beneath a peach-and-rose sunset or a pale blue midday sky; below it, turquoise water full of pink, coral and blue weed, rising bubbles and koi drifting past. The same small cast returns in every frame — a frog on its lily pad, a snail with a lilac shell, dragonflies stitched across the sky — the very creatures you shuffle through your pond. Pastel, calm and softly glowing, it is the pond the music describes.
🎬 Watch & Listen
Deal your eight cards face down. Let the soundtrack ripple out across the table, keep one eye on the river, and build a pond your neighbours will be glad to live beside. In Symbiosis, nothing thrives alone — not even the music.