Autumn is in the air, which means leaves are beginning to fall! The forest needs you to embody the wind and guide those leaves so they can connect to each other on the forest floor. Only the player who contributes the most to the health of the forest can win. Let’s get ready for fall!

What Is It?

Hand Management – Players must play a leaf card each turn, which determines which leaf they will place into the play area. Playing 2 of the same card gives players a bonus, while having no cards when they need to play one will give them a point penalty.

Tile Placement – Players will play a leaf to the play area each turn to grow the modular board and earn various actions. They will only get actions based on the color leaves they touch, not the one they place, so they want to be sure to place strategically to get the best actions.

Set Collection – Players will collect animal cards throughout the game which they will score sets of at game end (for ones they move from their forest to their winter den during frost triggers). They will also be placing and growing mushrooms out on the board which will score in groups as well at game’s end.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 4 Players – I thought the solo mode was decent and streamlined. For multiplayer, I think it scales fairly well at any count, you just have less turns with more players, so any count is fine
  • Ages 12 & Up – I think the strategy of where the best spots to place a leaf are each turn might be a big much for younger players since there are a bunch of action options.
  • Fans of tile placement and set collection
  • Players who like having a variety of actions and scoring options

Variants

Solo Mode – This variant sets up like the 2-player game, but the North Wind (AI) player flips a card from their deck each turn to determine what leaf they play, and their intended action. There is also descriptions in the rules for what to do if they can’t touch the leaf the card indicates, how to grow their mushrooms, and so on.

The North Wind cards are clear, the solo plays smoothly, and the upkeep didn’t feel excessive since it played well. I also like that you can adjust difficulty and there’s a fun achievement list players can mark things off of when they win to try and go for different things to see if they can accomplish that in their play and still beat the North Wind!

PROS

  • Aesthetics – I love the cardboard leaves, they look great on the table. Great art on the animal cards as well. Overall very attractive game
  • Rules – Well-written, good examples, clear to learn from – plus some fun forest facts at the end!
  • Components – Good quality across the board. Nice thick leaves, nice cardboard tokens. I love the storage boxes in the box for all the components
  • Overall gameplay is smooth; actions are clear
  • Player reference boards are top notch and flip over for easy access to all the scoring
  • No plastic waste in the game

CONS

  • Usability – The red and orange leaves are a bit close in color, but not too bad, but my real problem came from the red and orange player mushrooms, which are both very orange, and you can’t avoid playing with them in a 4 player game. There are action symbols on the leaves, but in 3 or 4 players, they are pretty much guaranteed to be covered up. And the mushrooms do have slightly different designs, but they are small, so they are hard to tell apart once there’s a bunch on the table. It just took away from the experience a lot as the colors and components all blended together
    • Connected to this, the leaves are fun, but it can be hard to tell how the tips will fit together, so some turns can run long as players end up having to test the various leaves and see which one will give them the action(s) they want
  • The tape on the outside of the box did not come off cleanly on all the sides, so my box got just a little ripped, even though I was being careful, so just watch out for that!
  • I kind of wished there were more opportunities to hibernate animals because it felt like the animal action got worse over the game since, once you had a group of animals for each frost, you didn’t need to keep collecting them because they were either worth very few points (if past the 3rd card in a group), or you wouldn’t be able to hibernate them all (if you had too many different animals)

Final Thoughts

I thought this game had a great look and a fun theme, so I was pretty excited about it. The usability issues I faced kept me from liking it a bit more because I struggled with the similar colors being so close in proximity in so many facets of the game. Again, I know the mushrooms are different styles, and the leaves have action symbols on them, but the mushrooms are small so I still struggled with them, and even players I played with who don’t typically struggle with colors were a little disappointed that the colors were so close.

That aside, I still thought the game was neat! It was fun to build out the board and I liked the varied action choices available to players. It was neat to see different strategies play out and how players could have different focuses but still score very close in the end. If you like tile placement and set collection, this might be a good choice for you!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Tim Eisner
Artist – Angela Rizza
Publisher – Weird City Games
MSRP – $40 (Standard); $65 (Deluxe)
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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