When this game was brand new I looked at it in a shop and said “That looks interesting, but I already have 3 games I’m buying and this would put me over $100 for the day…. I’ll wait.” And then the game was sold out. And took awhile to come back to shelves. And then I didn’t have the money for it when it came back…. But finally it came back and I had the money for it. Yay!…. And then it took me forever to get it to the table.

The game has 3 expansions and like 20 promo cards currently. There is a new expansion announced that I believe collects the promo items into something you can buy. Which is super cool!

But what is the game about, I hear you asking. 

Each player has 6 cards in hand (it plays 2-5.) The cards are either trees or animals. There are 8 different trees that all have different scoring methods. Every card has a cost to play it, and that cost is paid by discarding that many cards to a center row. Animal cards are the fascinating part of the game. Each animal card is split either top to bottom or left to right. You have to choose which half you want to play and then pay its cost, then tuck it under a tree. This makes for a lot of interesting choices because when you pay the cost to play a card, you make it available to your opponent. Sometimes you have to throw something away you really want. On your turn you can only do one of two things: Play a card from your hand OR draw 2 cards (which can be from the deck or the center row.)

The game has 3 cards which are put into the bottom third of the deck, these act as an endgame trigger that shows up randomly. 

I have only had a chance to play it at the 2 player count and I think it is going to be a much different game at a higher player count. Because anything I don’t do my opponent can do. And if I put something in the middle I want back, I will likely get it back if it didn’t fit their plan for their turn. With more players I’m not getting it back. So every decision is more impactful in a game with more players. 

This game does make a huge mistake with the rulebook for a first play, and the first play only. In setup it says “Give each player a Cave card.” And then doesn’t reference that card ANYWHERE else in the rulebook. Turned into a 10 minute reread of rules looking for what it did, and then a search online to discover there are 2 card types in the deck that use the cave. They should have said that. Really easy fix. “Give each player a Cave card, these are only used with certain cards in the deck that will explain how to use it.” Boom. Fixed. Now after a first play, this is something you “know.” And if someone is teaching you the game, they would explain it as they handed you the Cave card. But that doesn’t impact my rating of the game, only makes me frustrated by the world of slightly bad rulebooks.

This is absolutely a game that will stay on my shelf and I look forward to getting many more plays of it. Easy to say it gets an 8 rating from me today.