Rounds continue in this manner until one player hits one of the three victory conditions. Once this occurs, that signals that this will be the final round of the game. This could cause players to take high risks in this round! Should you draw more cards than is safe? It might help you get that mega-move you’ve been building up towards! For each Guardian Animals card taken this turn, a Fire of a corresponding value is added to the Circle of Spirits: Kodama symbols can net you a (2Water/2Sun/2Tree) or (1Wind/1Flower) tile. Each of these tiles can only count as one of the listed element bonuses.

Living Forest est un jeu Initiés qui saura vous embarquer dans un univers singulier, tant au niveau thématique que mécanique. Living forest has multiple paths to victory and quite a few mechanics in play. Having played several times now, I gravitate towards collecting protective trees more than other actions. I like the spatial puzzle element. The permanent and immediate bonuses they offer give an advantage that strengthens as the game goes on. And there’s no downside to planting. They are miniature, natural engines. Jonathan (5+ plays) : I really like this game, enough so that after a few plays on BGA, I went and bought a copy. I said ‘love it’ in this review because the game takes ~5-7 rounds and each round, each player takes two out of the five possible actions, but some of them chain, so you can move around the rondel which lets you get a tree, which lets you get some fire tokens. Although it is one action, that sequence lets you take three actions with one. It has enough choice each turn without out staying its welcome and has led to memorable moments and surprises, such as thinking you are winning and then realize your victory next turn will be a turn too late. You do need to pay attention to what the other players are doing, as there might be certain actions you want to avoid taking because they will set up an opponent. I did not feel there was too much take-that, which I dislike, but for those who don’t like it, I am confident a variant will be found. As an aside, I like the colors green and blue., so I found the game beautiful as well. Important! A gregarious symbol cancels a solitary symbol. It will therefore be possible to play more than 3 solitary Guardian Animals in the same turn, provided that you have already revealed one or more gregarious Guardian Animals. Note that only the symbol of the solitary Guardian Animal is canceled, the Elements will be taken into account in the Action phase. So should you keep drawing until you go ‘bust’, then? What are the stakes? The Action Phase: Time To Cash In Those ElementsPlant one and only one Protective Tree: Add up the amount of leaves and take one, and only one, Protective Tree for a total cost equal to or lower than your number of leaves. By placing a Protective Tree on specific corners you gain a specific extra Action. The arrival of new Guardian Animals: Complete the Guardian Animal reserve by revealing as many new cards per level as there were cards taken this turn – i.e. fill in the holes in the display Your choice of actions to take are to do with the elements present on the cards you drew this turn. The sun, water, sapling and wind. (The flower isn’t an action you take – that’s one of the victory conditions, remember? If you draw cards that have a sum of 12 flowers then boom! That’s one of the game-end triggers, and that awakens Sanki, the great Guardian of the Forest.) Whilst we will do everything we can to meet the delivery times above, there may be factors outside of our control and we cannot guarantee delivery within this time frame.

So, Living Forest has been one of the more thought provoking games I’ve come across in 2022. And, I’m honestly not sure yet if that’s a good or bad thing! As soon as we finished our first game, my group (in our usual post mortem) discussed what we thought about the game. We concluded that after our first game, we were worried that the tree building strategy was the best as we didn’t see any way to stop it. There wasn’t really much your opponents could do to prevent this from happening, and thus, it was a superior strategy. It made us worry about the long term replayability of the game. You can stop drawing cards whenever you want. However, if you reveal a card showing a third solitary symbol , then you must stop drawing cards. This card closes your Help Line.The fact that I’m still thinking about how to best play the game and I’m looking for pieces to help the standees work better tells me that I’m planning to keep the game. And, in many ways, that is perhaps a great indication of what I think about it. In the case where two players both trigger a victory condition in the same round, a tie-break occurs. Here, players add up the sum of all three victory conditions and compare. They add their Fire Chits, different Protective Tree Tile types, and the sum of how many Flowers they have face-up in that round. (Don’t forget to include any Victory Point Tiles they have.) The higher sum of these combined categories takes the tie-break win. It’s time to meet your new Grand Protector of the Forest!

As mentioned previously Living Forest: Kodama increases the required wining conditions to 13. BUT when all the Kodama of a particular type have been removed the winning condition of that particular spirit is increased to 15. This means if someone appears to be racing towards victory you can attract these Kodama to make the finishing post stretch off into the distance. The last way to win is by collecting 12 sacred flowers to awaken Sanki the great Guardian of the Forest. You collect these on animal cards and trees. If you add up the value of your sapling symbols, you can buy one single Protective Tree Tile from the dispensers. This sum equates to the cost equal to (or less than) that of a Tree tile you can claim. The first tree you place has to sit adjacent to your initial Protective Tree tile, in the middle of your Forest Board. Every tree after that has to sit adjacent to any tree on your board. And… due to all this speculation about how to best win the game, I’ve been thinking about the game pretty constantly this week, and that doesn’t happen often. As a result, this is easily one of the more intriguing games for me this year, and one I still want to explore further. I will probably play this in person with my regular groups more, but it’s also available online at BGA if you want to try it there. In some ways, this game might play easier online as you’ll have the computer to count up your totals in the different areas as well as make sure that you’re not missing any bonuses from your trees or tree board (as we often miscounted things on our own in the FTF games).

The Kodama expansion adds a Kodama market and symbols, new trees, new guardian spirits, the Onibi standee, and new element tiles. Mainly, this expansion gives a new use for the pink flower symbol aside from the win condition. Additionally, the new win condition is set to 13, and not 12.

You can keep drawing Guardian cards, but if you reveal 3 Guardians with “ solitary” symbols printed on them in a row, you must stop. A “gregarious” or “neutral” symbol will cancel out a solitary symbol. You can use any Lotus tiles you have acquired to discard a card just revealed with a solitary symbol card to enable you to keep drawing if you like. At no player count is this a particularly heavy strategy game, but it’s potentially fun if you want board games for families and friends. You may find it’s a tiny bit complicated to explain, though, with all the little moving parts, none of which will feel familiar to people who’ve only encountered mass market games. They will, however, probably enjoy the production values with the curious little tree dispensers and the blank-eyed spirit animals striking just the right balance between cute and scarily mystical. Overall - should you buy Living Forest? Each tree has a symbol and number on it. Once placed, this tree provides a permanent bonus to you. You add up this alongside the symbols in your Help Line. As the game progresses and you have more trees, you can achieve bigger and better actions. It’s like you’re building an engine out of trees. A metaphorical engine, of course. You’re not the one deforesting… That’s the role of naughty, burny Onibi.You can add a tree to your forest board. Managing to get 12 different trees is one way to win the game. The trees also have unique, on going benefits to help you throughout the game, like adding permanent symbols or allowing you to take the same action twice.