Forage: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Forage is the final game in the trilogy created by Mark Tuck and published by Side Room Games.

Following the earlier games Orchard and Grove, this Solitaire Trilogy is all about layering cards and making optimal placements to score big points. If you love autumnal themes and searching the woodland floor for goodies such as mushrooms, blackberries and chestnuts, Forage’s artwork will draw you in while the gameplay keeps you puzzling over your next move.

The Forest Floor

Setup is incredibly easy. Take the 18 cards, split the deck in half and shuffle one stack of 9 cards. You’ll place one of these in the centre and the remaining cards will form your draw deck. Draw two cards into your hand and you’re good to go. Make sure to keep all the dice and Edwood Mouse token close by.

The gameplay loop is smooth and will only take around 15 minutes, depending on how long you spend scratching your head over your next move. Each turn you’ll place one of your cards by layering it over a card already on the table.

You’ll want to match icons on the cards to earn points, so you’ll be placing chestnuts on chestnuts and mushrooms on mushrooms. Each time you match an icon, you place a die on top of it to track the points you’ve earned. The first layer scores 1 point, and depending on how well you maximise the placement, you can get up to 15 points from a single die.

After placing a card, draw back up to two cards until the deck runs out.

Sounds easy… but layering matching symbols isn’t always as simple as it sounds. More often than not, setting up a big scoring opportunity means covering an icon that doesn’t match.

Whenever this happens you have to place a die showing the mouse side, which is worth -2 points. If you ever run out of dice and you still need to place a mouse, you must place Edwood Mouse, who is a whopping -5 points. You might also place Edwood if you ever need to layer onto a mouse die, which can only happen once per game.

Deciding when to risk a mouse for a big scoring layer is part of the real brain burn.

But the negative points don’t stop there. One big difference between Forage and its predecessors is that it contains dual-surface areas. These can act as two different foragable spaces, giving you more options when it comes to layering.

However, if you place one of these areas over a space with a die and the game ends, that die now counts as -1 point instead of scoring normally. So although it offers more freedom, you have to keep an eye on these placements as they can really scupper your scoring streak if you’re not careful.

The core game is a simple score-chasing puzzle. Play, score, then try to beat your previous result. As each game only uses 9 cards, you can easily play two games back to back thanks to the 18-card system. But that’s not all. Forage also includes several variations to keep things interesting.

Cooking Up Foraged Recipes

If you’ve had your fill of the basic game, there’s more to sink your teeth into. Each card is double-sided, and the reverse sides contain objectives that reshape your scoring priorities. These objectives might include getting a die to 15, placing all dice of a certain item, or ensuring no mice appear in play.

What I love about these objective cards is that they are based on foragable recipes, such as Chestnut Tart, Mushroom Soup and Blackberry Cordial. I usually play this variation as I like the extra challenge and clear goals to work toward.

Much like Sprawlopolis, the objective cards also create the scoring criteria. Each card has a number in the top left, and for each game you will use two objective cards. Add those numbers together to create the target score you must beat to win. This variation is exciting and gives the puzzle a stronger sense of direction.

On top of that, despite this being a solitaire game, you can also play with friends. If you have a friend who owns a copy of the game, you can try the multiplayer challenge variant. This plays exactly like the main game, but the lead player calls out the numbers of the cards they are using and everyone else selects the same cards from their own deck. This means every player is solving the exact same puzzle, but the scores may differ depending on who optimises the layout best.

Final Thoughts

As someone who is relatively new to solo gaming, I really enjoyed my time with Forage. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t scored particularly well yet and I’m still trying to complete an objective, but I love the puzzle. With each game being so quick and setup minimal, it’s easy to jump straight back in for another attempt.

It reminds me a lot of Sprawlopolis with its layering mechanic, but the art design and tactile elements, such as the dice and Edwood Mouse, give it a charm that I absolutely adore. It’s simply a lovely game to lay out on the table and spend time with.