In the summer, the forest is full of glorious, magical Faerie Folk. You are on a mission to find those Faeries and make fast friends. It will take a bit of courage, but soon, you will be able to gain their trust, and befriend them in no time. You’d better get started before the summer, and your chance,
fades away!

What Is It?

Action Selection – Each turn the active player will chose 1 of 5 actions to perform – gain trust (place a kinship token in an area), build garden (select & place a garden tile on your board), befriend a Faerie (draft a card), helping hand (play a card), or call Faeries (draw cards). They may also play a card as the active player (so HH allows you to play 2 on your turn).

Following – All other players will perform the same action in turn after the active player.

Deck Building – Players will add more cards to their decks throughout the game and hopefully build a deck of cards that work well together for actions and scoring.

Take That – Some cards will attack opponents (remove cubes, discard cards, etc)

Area Majority – There are 5 folk areas on the board to control. The 1st player to 10 cubes in each area earns a Faerie home tile which will increase their garden board scoring, if they place it well enough. Additionally, at game end, the player with the most cubes in each area scores 1 point per cube in that area, and the person with the 2nd most cubes scores 1 point per cube of just their color in that area.

Tile Placement – Players will draft tiles to place on their personal garden boards as either paths or plants. Plants will score 1 point per square at game end as long as they are connected to a path. They will score double if also connected to a Faerie home. Players will also earn small bonuses as they cover certain spots on their boards.

Hand Management – You only draw cards if that action is chosen, so you have to really think about your card drafts and plays and optimize that drawing action as well.

Who Is It For?

  • 2 to 4 Players – I think it’s fine at any count, though the dynamic of the game is definitely different depending on count
  • Ages 12 & Up/Mid-Weight Game Fans – There might be a bit much going on for younger audiences, or those less familiar with various game mechanisms just because of how many options you have turn to turn, and trying to balance all the aspects of the game
  • Fans of lots of options/paths to victory/opportunity for strategy
  • Player who like being actively engaged on all players’ turns

Variants

Starting Draft – Give each 4 cards from the Faerie deck to draft into their starting deck. This gives players more options from the start and makes the 1st “draw” action better since you can fill your hand to 5, and have stronger cards. It does speed the game up though since you’re taking a bunch of cards out of the deck at the start. It’s definitely interesting and worth playing with at least sometimes.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Really great artwork
  • Components – Nice quality across the board, no complaints
  • I love the “follow” aspect. It keeps everyone invested on every turn because you’re always taking an action. It also makes for much less downtime since you always get to do something
  • Lots of choices / variety in strategy / paths to victory
  • I think the varied mechanisms ultimately work pretty well together
  • I like that tiles and cards get removed for lower player counts, so the game isn’t too long

CONS

  • Rules – Vague/unclear for some things; a lot of random questions arose during play, and the rules did not provide clarity
  • It seems odd that you don’t start with your deck in-hand. It means the 1st player always has to choose “draw” if they want to play a card, which just seems silly
  • Some cards definitely seem more powerful than others as some are very situational and some are more universal
  • I dislike the score marker being on your personal board where you’re placing tiles. I just thought it was in the way and too easy to knock over

Final Thoughts

I liked the combination of mechanisms in this game. I thought it all worked pretty well together and it was interesting to try and balance the different aspects and try out different focuses/strategies to score well. (Personally, I thought a heavy card strategy worked better with less players, while I liked to focus on garden tiles more with more players).

I really wanted to like this one more, but ultimately, the rules kind of did it in for me, and I came out just finding it fine. The rules lacked a lot of clarity and I just thought the number of questions I, and the people I played with, had during games really disrupted the flow of the game. Questions would come up for card clarity, what to do for ties in kinship majority, and a few other things, which seem small, but add up to just being a little frustrating.

If you don’t mind a vaguer rulebook, and like a combination of different mechanisms, then check this one out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Glenn Drover
Artist – Annie Stegg-Gerard
Publishers – Forbidden Games, University Games
MSRP – $49.99
Website

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

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