Carefully crafting the perfect woodland alongside your ideal copse, inspiring those seeking enlightenment. Guide your pilgrims to the safe sanctuary of your copse, in the hope to be the one who most closely represents their wishes, becoming the master of the forest.
This is Forest Folk, by Ludus Vulpes.
Exploring the forest…
This is very much a small box game with minimal components.
The base box contains 48 forest cards, 15 pilgrim cards, a score pad and 4 reference cards. The cards are square, so don’t be expecting to easily sleeve them, but each card feels quality in production with simple but beautiful artwork by Kate Davies on the forest cards. The pilgrim cards, serve a more functional purpose, but still has functional imagery that still very much ties into the overall theme.
The reference cards are a great addition to game, with thumbnails of each forest card artwork and information regarding the powers connected to that piece of art (more on that later)
Finally, there is the rule book, which is small, compact and easy to follow, and will get you playing this game in no time.
Gameplay
Gameplay revolves around those beautifully illustrated cards, and the illustrations are key as there is no text to be found anywhere. Each card holds 3 pieces of information.
Powers – these are represented by the central and most prominent illustrations on the cards. The image (also shown on the reference card thumbnails), tells you the power that activates when the card is played into the forest (not the copse). These powers range from ways to remove cards already in place, move them around, exchange them, draw new cards or increase scoring potential.
Paths – on each card you will find a small, illustrated symbol on all four edges of the cards. Sometimes identical sometimes different. These represent the paths that connect each card. They do not need to match the card orthogonally adjacent, but depending on objectives you are trying to achieve, you must keep this mind when playing cards to either the forest of copse.
Glades – small, illustrated symbols are found in the corners of each card also. When 2 or more of these connect as cards a placed, they become glades, again like paths, these matter depending on your objectives.
When setting up Forest Folk, you shuffle the forest cards, dealing 5 to each player and then create a starting layout in the centre of the playing area, size and shape all dependant on player count. This is the forest, and all players interact with this throughout the game.
You then deal 4 forest cards face up in a row to create a draw area, placing the remaining cards face down face down in a pile next to them.
Each player will select and play one of their forest cards to their copse (which is their personal playing area), leaving them with just 4 cards remaining.
Next you shuffle the pilgrim cards and deal 3 to each player. Each player selects 2 of their 3 and secretly discards the other one so other players do not know what it is. These cards provide you with each players secret personal objectives.
One each players turn you will play 1 card to the forest and 1 card to your personal copse. You start a turn by drawing a card. You could do this from either 1 of the four face up cards, immediately replacing them if you chose to do this, or by drawing blind from the face down pile.
The first card you select from your hand will be played to the forest, following set placement rules. You must make sure its path connects to a path from a previously placed card (either during set up or by another player), and the orientation must be identical to all other placed cards.
Once the card is played, you trigger the power, indicated by the artwork on the card. Once the action, triggered by the power, has been completed, you then place a card from your hand into your copse, following the same placement rules. Your turn is then over and play proceeds to the next player.
At the end of each round, all players should now have 1 card less in their hand than they started with. This helps with tracking game progression, as the game ends once all players have no cards remaining in their hand.
Once the game ends, scores are calculated, based on their objectives.
You first score your objectives against the forest, then you score them against your copse – the scores for your copse are doubled.
Final thoughts
Ludus Vulpes love to produce games with a bit of heart, and Forest Folk is no different. The gameplay, very much like the artwork, is captivating yet simple. This is not a game aimed at huge complex mechanisms, but simple mechanisms aimed at creating enough ‘thinking’ space to fall in that space of a casual game, yet makes you sit and ponder your next choice.
Keep eyes on your objectives, remembering you have two places to score them, but you might also find yourself watching what other players are doing. You will find yourself Thinking about how your next move could reduce their scoring potential in the forest. This makes for a level of casual tension and competitiveness without being too much.
Forest Folk is a beautiful little game and one that is definitely worth a play if you get the chance. Add to that, with it being in a small compact box, this makes it a game you can easily take game nights with family and friends, or even take away on holiday, for a quick evening play. This game has also nicely slotted into that weekday slot, averaging at around 15-20 minutes play time.
About the author:
We are Peaches and Meeples, busy professionals who love to chill out to fun table top games. We love board games, card games, miniatures games, competitive or co-operative. Put some dice in our hands and we are in our happy place.
We are also proud guinea pig parents to two lovely fluffballs of joy.
