Welcome to the woods of Everdell! It’s time to set up Everdell Duo and get ready to play.
Setup:
1. Open your board and place the inviting Meadow in the centre. This is where each turn will be tracked and where you’ll find the cards you can play and add to your hand.
2. Shuffle the 80-card deck and deal two cards to each player. Then, place eight cards face up on the spaces on the Meadow.
3. Find the corresponding Events labelled A-E, shuffle each set, and draw one tile from each.
4. Locate the Journey tile and place it on the rightmost space on the top of the main board.
5. Shuffle the tiles you’ve drawn along with the Faire tile and lay them out in a row from left to right on the remaining spaces.
6. Create piles of each resource: berries, pebbles, twigs, and resin. Also, create piles of points tokens and Occupied Tokens.
7. Place the four-season tiles on the right-hand side of the board, with Winter at the top of the vertical pile ending in Autumn.
8. Place the Sun and Moon tokens on the leftmost space on the path in the centre of the Meadow.
Now you’re ready to play!
How to Play:
Everdell Duo is played over four seasons, starting in Winter and ending with Autumn. Your goal is to build the most prestigious city by the end of the game through Constructions, Critters, and Events.
As a worker placement game, you’ll gain resources to build cards from your hand or a central display called The Meadow.
Each season, players have three meeples to compete for the most desirable locations. You can choose to play as either the Rabbit or the Tortoise, and players alternate turns each season.
Four of the locations are fixed, while two are found in the River and refresh each season. Unlike the basic Farm locations, these River spots offer better resources and sometimes even opportunities to play cards.
These resources enable you to build various structures and creatures throughout the game. There are five distinct card colours, ranging from one-off bonuses to resource income. Each card in Everdell Duo is unique, comprising 80 cards in total.
The five card colours each have different effects:
· Green (Production): Once played, it provides the resource listed on the card and again at the start of Spring and Autumn.
· Red (Destination): It offers worker placement spots with effects like playing cards from The Meadow or activating specific board locations.
· Tan (Traveller): These provide one-time effects, varying from resource acquisition to Event claiming.
· Purple (Prosperity): They grant specific end-game points for certain colours, creatures or constructions.
· Blue (Governance): These offer discounts for future cards and actions throughout the game.
Beyond gathering resources and building beautiful structures and adorable creatures, you can also compete for Events. These are randomised from a large stack provided with the game and offer additional points and direction. Their changing nature, combined with the substantial deck, ensures great replayability.
Events focus the game, awarding points for a specific number of cards in a particular colour. The Faire, a recurring event in every game, demands one card of each colour in your city. Finally, the Journey is awarded at the game’s end to the player with the most cards in their hand.
Additionally, the game introduces new Sun and Moon tokens. These tokens represent each action taken during the game. Everdell has three action types: taking a card, playing a card or placing a worker. Each action moves either the Sun or the Moon, depending on which one it is. These movements indicate the remaining turns in each season and can be used to block your opponent from certain actions.
This mechanic is crucial because unlike original Everdell players, you can only play cards from The Meadow by either touching the Sun or the Moon. Timing is key to lining up the right card and token, providing a clear gameplay timeline. I enjoy games with a specific turn counter, as it creates a sense of tightness and clarity for each player. As mentioned, this mechanic can also be used for direct player interaction, limiting actions to a maximum of 24 per player. Efficiency is essential in every action, from playing cards to winning events or placing workers.
Solo, Challenge & Campaign Mode:
Everdell offers more than just head-to-head competitive mode. Solo mode introduces some unique elements. Randomly placed Skunk meeples block or reduce the number of turns. In easy mode, you place three Skunks on the Sun/Moon track, rolling a dice to determine their locations. At the end of each season, reroll the dice to move the Skunks.
In easy mode, two Skunks are placed randomly across the River and Farm locations, which are also refreshed each season, blocking new spots. One Skunk is placed on Event A (the easiest to achieve) in Winter and randomised on subsequent seasons.
At the start of the game, the Skunk or Miss Lily Thron receives three cards. At the end of each season, she takes a card from the right of her meeple on The Meadow. In Winter and Summer, she takes the topmost card, while in Winter and Autumn, she takes the bottom-right-hand card.
Scoring is calculated by adding up the points from each card, plus the points from events and two points for each purple card played in her city.
Challenge mode operates similarly to solo, but now you and your playing partner must collaborate, sharing resources and cooperating throughout the year.
Co-op mode offers a different experience with a story read at the start and a custom setup each time. The skunks are randomised and rotate seasonally. The objective is to meet the minimum points needed for each chapter and achieve a certain number of events. You also begin the game by shuffling the Good News cards and dealing two. Then, decide which card you’d like to keep.
Have Fun!
Everdell take elements of the original game but packages them into a fun and engaging two-player experience. So may the valley of Everdell be favourable to you!
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
83%
