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Forest Shuffle
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Description
In Forest Shuffle, players compete to gather the most valuable trees, attract species to these trees and, as an effect, create an ecologically balanced habitat for flora and fauna.
To start, each player has six cards in hand, with cards depicting either a particular type of tree or two forest dwellers (animal, plant, mushroom, etc.), with these latter cards being divided in half, whether vertically or horizontally, with one dweller in each card half.
On a turn, either draw two cards — whether face down from the deck or face up from the clearing — and add them to your hand, or play a card from your hand by paying the cost, then putting it into play.
Each tree and dweller shows a cost, and to pay this cost, you must discard cards from your hand into the clearing face up. If you play a tree, flip the top card of the deck into the clearing, then place the tree in front of you. If you play a dweller, pay only the cost on the dweller you choose, then slide this card under a tree that has an empty side that matches the dweller you want to play. (A tree can have cards played on all four sides of it: top, bottom, left, and right.)
Alternatively, you can play a card face down as a tree sapling. This card costs nothing and can have dwellers played on it, but it has no species, whereas each tree is one of eight species.
After you play a card, you can use the effect on this card (drawing cards, placing additional cards, taking another turn, etc.) or gain the bonus you gained if you paid for this card with cards of the same color — or both, if applicable, with the effect taking place before the bonus.
If at the end of your turn the clearing contains more than nine cards, place all of these cards in the box out of play.
During set-up, three winter cards were placed into the bottom third of the deck. When the third winter card is drawn, the game ends immediately, then players tally their points based on the trees and dwellers in their forest. Whoever scores the most points wins.
Forest Shuffle is the first in a line of Lookout games sporting the Lookout Greenline label, produced on FSC certified paper and avoiding plastic completely.
Find our more about Forest Shuffle here
Nature, It’s All Over Me!
There seem to be a large number of recent board games with a nature or animal theme that have been released over the past couple of years with some excellent options out there, Earth for example being one of my favourite games from last year. Forest Shuffle is a 2 to 5 player game that plays in an hour, and I think that is actually on the generous side with games I’ve had often lasting around 45 minutes, although I haven’t yet played at 5 which may run longer. The game is designed by Kosch and published by Lookout Games and features absolutely gorgeous art by Toni Llobet. So how does Forest Shuffle stand up amongst the other nature and animal themed games and does it do enough differently to warrant your attention?
Every Day I’m Shuffling
Forest Shuffle is a card game, with a board to act as an area to draw and discard cards from, and in it you will play cards to your play area hoping to gain the most points when the game ends, which happens immediately when the third winter card is drawn. Set up is really quick, put together a deck with a number of cards based on the player count and roughly separate the cards into 3 piles. In the third pile, you place 1 winter card on top, and shuffle the other 2 into the pile before putting all three piles together with the third pile with the winter cards on the bottom. Deal 6 starting cards to each player and you’re good to go!
On your turn in Forest Shuffle, you can take one of two actions, either draw 2 cards or play cards into your forest. Almost all cards cost cards to play, which are discarded into the clearing, which is the shared board that you or other players can draw from. The first type of card you want to play are trees, and there are 8 different varieties in the game, and then you can play different animals, insects, funghi or fauna around each tree. Each tree is different, offering different ways to score, and helping to form your initial approach to the opening turns. Every time you play a tree, new cards are added to the clearing, and along with other cards discarded here you have plenty of options when it comes to choosing what to pick up. However, if at the end of a player’s turn there are 10 or more cards in the clearing, these are all discarded. Don’t ask me how this works thematically but it does help to clear the space.
After you’ve placed a tree, you can begin populating it. One of the unique things about this game is the cards are split, top and bottom or left and right, with one habitant of the tree on each half of the card, allowing you for example to play a fox to the right of the tree, or a hare to the left. Each opens up different paths to scoring and there are so many different scoring options in the game and this is Forest Shuffle’s greatest strength. Some cards will have specific actions that will trigger if you play a corresponding card of a matching colour as part of the cost, and most cards will offer a small bonus upon playing like drawing new cards or being able to play additional cards from your hand.
I’ve played this multiple times and each time I’ve wanted to take a new approach to see if it works, maybe I’ll try and collect as many butterflies as possible, or get one of each tree. As with many games, there are probably some strategies that are consistently more successful than others but it’s fun to play around with the different options.
Winter Is Coming
Knowing when to switch up your strategy and pivot is key to the end game, when the winter cards start coming into play it’s really important to learn to prioritise how to get cards out quickly or risk the game suddenly ending with your high scoring cards still in hand and this brings a sudden layer of tension to what is otherwise quite a serene experience. I’ve found in early plays of the game, we all perhaps rushed the deck too quickly bringing a swift end to the game, with low scores and frustration but as we learned to manipulate the card row and draw more from there the scores and length of the game increased but never to the point where it felt like it was dragging out too long.
Once the game ends, scoring is probably the most complex part of the game, with multiple checks on your different combos and types of cards needed. Rather than a player reference aid, or a reference within the rulebook there is a handy set of cards with an A-Z of the different cards that can be played if you do need any clarifications on what scores what or how. This would be my only real gripe with the game, although it does get easier the more you play, however the first couple of games might cause a few head scratches to what is otherwise a relatively straightforward game.
So returning to my first point, how does Forest Shuffle compare to the whole host of other nature games out there and is it worth adding to your collection. Well it’s been an absolute hit in our house, hitting the table three nights running when it first arrived and I can’t think of another game that has ever done that for our household. It is quick to set up and play, it has gorgeous art and multiple ways to score and seek victory. It has a calmness to it while being played where you almost always feel as if you have some options open to you. The shorter play time means it has been easy to get to the table and the theme is delightful, only slightly hampered by a slightly convoluted scoring system and depending on the size of your forest, it can take up quite a bit of space on the table.
Where Our Story Begins
Forest Shuffle from Lookout Games is a game about creating your own ecosystem. You have a hand of cards all with either a tree, or two tree dwelling flora or fauna displayed on them. You are of course trying to jump in and get the most victory points, this time by building the best ecosystem of trees, animals, insects and flowers. This is a beautifully illustrated card game that is simple in its teaching and strategic in its playstyle. If you are looking for something with a cute theme and infinite replayability then you simply cannot go wrong with picking up this gem.
Basic Gameplay
This is a drafting, set collection and combination scoring game. You spend your turn either picking two cards from those in the face up forest market, or blindly from the deck. Or you can play a card from your hand, discarding cards to pay its cost. Simple. You play until the third winter card is revealed when gameplay immediately ceases. These winter cards are shuffled into the bottom third of the forest card deck, so you sort of know when they are due, but not exactly when they will come out. This is the timer of the game, and depending on your strategy, you may want to rush the game to its close or try to avoid taking cards to elongate the game.
Cards are arranged around trees. Once you have a tree in your forest, you will be able to place a card above, below, to the left and to the right of it. You will be trying to create synergies between the cards that you place, for example if you have a fox then this will score best if you also have European hares in your forest. A squirrel will score best if it is on an oak tree. Boars want to be with squeakers and so on. Each card also has a colour or two on it, if you manage to pay for your card by discarding cards of the matching colour then you will unlock a bonus. You will trying to secure the best cards into your forest whilst also not discarding cards that help your opponent too much. Keeping a well stocked forest of trees is also important to ensure that you have space to play these excellent cards too. It is a balancing act in strategic card play, and I love it.
For a very simple to learn and play game, there is devilish complexity in working out the best option for you. Many of the cards have scoring dependent on set collection or having other symbiotic cards present in your ecosystem. The beauty of card play comes in being able to pay for cards using the right coloured cards and activating their special ability. Generally these can be things like helping you play another animal for free, or drawing some cards or even just getting a whole other turn.
As the player count increases the game time will likely not change as the deck of cards is the same size. The scores will be lower the higher the player count as you all fight over the same cards for your forest. We have thoroughly enjoyed this game at 2 players, and as neither of us is trying to rush the game, have found that this has meant we were able to achieve some monster scores.
Components
Forest Shuffle is a pretty simple game in terms of components and really it is just cards with a small board. The board is pretty simple in design but very beautiful and honestly is superfluous to requirements as you simply need to wipe it after ten cards are placed into the forest.
The cards are the most important, these ARE the game! These have in my opinion utterly beautiful depictions of various fauna and flora on them. The animals (and insect/flora) cards are split either horizontally or vertically, but I have not found that this means they are tough to read. The trees are striking in their simple design which makes them easy to pick out of your hand. The colours are depicted with differing leaf icons which aid with quickly seeing which colours match. I will stress however that this does not help the colour blind amongst us as the trigger section for the benefit does not contain these icons.
One thing I really appreciate is that there is a deck of cards which give further details on how each animal works. These are in alphabetical order and are a pretty good quick read to refer to. I also appreciate this means that the rulebook can remain a simple leaflet which is ideal.
Replayability
If you are looking for a game that has almost no rules overhead but will usually feel different each time you play, then Forest Shuffle could be a hit for you. Each of the cards has different scoring abilities and varied scoring synergies too. We have had fun trying out varying strategies, from placing down all the trees possible in favour of animal cards, to maxing out every tree we have with as many cards as possible.
We have found that game time is a little longer than you would expect as your brain tries to calculate the best strategy. Some people may because of this always default to their previous strategy. Seemingly this is deer and wolves or foxes and rabbits in our opinion. I think it is necessary to make sure that no one player can get all the deer because these not only synergise but also create huge scoring opportunities of their own. I wonder if the deer are slightly too powerful, although they are expensive to place so perhaps that balances it out.
Round Up
For me, Forest Shuffle is a contender for game of the year for 2023. Lookout games tend to put out a lot of cool games that I love, but this one was a surprise with how simple it was to learn. There are so many different animals and they all work differently but it is pretty easy to get a grip on what you are doing. There are so many different strategies that will alter based on cards that make this feel like a game I won’t get bored of.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Nature theme
- Quick turns
- Lots of paths to points
- Beautiful art
Might not like
- Scoring at the end of the game
- Can be a table hog
- Players can rush the end game