Everdell is a cute looking board game with a stupid tree sold to me as a deck-building game.
So is it good? and is it even a deck-building game?
Within the charming valley of Everdell, beneath the boughs of towering trees, among meandering streams and mossy hollows, a civilization of forest critters is thriving and expanding. From Everfrost to Bellsong, many a year have come and gone, but the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities established. You will be the leader of a group of critters intent on just such a task. There are buildings to construct, lively characters to meet, events to host—you have a busy year ahead of yourself. Will the sun shine brightest on your city before the winter moon rises?
Everdell Game Play
All the bits… There’s a main board and that tree that the game is famous for, it’s really big. There are resources placed along a river on the main board. A deck of Forest Cards is shuffled and also placed on the board in forest clearings. There are some event tiles near the river too and 4 event cards face up on the tree’s branches.
Setup continues with the main deck which is shuffled and 8 cards laid face-up in the middle of the main board which is called the Meadow. Each player takes 2 workers of their colour and players gets a hand of cards from the main deck. The 4 remaining workers are placed on the tree in the spaces marking the seasons: 1 each in Spring and Summer and 2 in Autumn.
The game is played over a number of turns starting with the start player and going clockwise taking one action each. There are 3 actions:
Place a Worker
Place a worker from the supply onto a location space on the main board. Most of these will get you a number of resources: Berries, Twigs, Resin and Pebbles.
Some let you draw cards and one lets you discard cards for resources. Another lets you discard cards for points (Called the Journey) but that can only be done in Autumn. Those event cards you laid out? You can place a worker on them if you meet their criteria to get their reward.
The spaces themselves allow one worker or multiple depending on how the space is printed on the board.
Play a Card
To play a card, you spend the resources shown on one in your hand or in the meadow and put it into your play area. There is room for 15 cards there.
Cards come in two types: Critters that are the people of the forest and Construction which are the buildings. Some buildings show the name of a critter at the bottom and if you have that building you can play that critter for free. For example, If I remember correctly, the Inn allows you to play the Innkeeper.
The cards come in a variety of colours which essentially show how they activate and when. For example, Purple is end game scoring and Green (production) cards trigger when you prepare for a new season.
Preparing for Next Season
When a player has played all of their workers, they can prepare for the next season on their next action. They return all of their workers and pick up the extra workers put aside for that season from the tree.
When entering Spring, all green cards you have, which are production cards, activate once each.
When entering Summer, take any 2 cards from the Meadow.
Finally, entering Autumn means all of your green production cards activate again but you don’t recall your workers. When all players have done this, the game ends.
Players will do this at different times and be in different seasons simultaneously as the game progresses.
End Game
You get points from victory points on cards in your play area, VP tokens picked up during the game, bonuses from purple cards in your play area, points from the Journey and any event cards.
The winner is the player with the most victory points.
Theme
Put animals in a game and you sell me on it. It worked for me with Root and it has here too.
I’m not sure of the back story of what going on and why we’re each building a city but it doesn’t matter.
Setup
All seems fine except maybe assembling that tree?
Shuffling here, laying out there, tokens around. The rest of it should be pretty straightforward. I believe things you need to remember are on the board which always helps.
Components & Artwork
The tree… made this game what it is and it would be interesting to know how the game would have gone without it. You can’t put it in the middle of the table or it blocks the view of the meadow for some players.
The resources are REALLY nice but very small. But the pebbles are nice and smooth and the berries soft and squishy. The meeples are cute.
I don’t mind the art style. I mean, it’s not my style but the details on the critter cards are a lot of fun.
Ease of Teaching & Accessibility
The game is easy to teach on the whole with very few actual rules. But as ever, hidden cards in hand is a barrier to entry.
Also, if you sit behind the tree you’ll have trouble seeing.
Everdell Summary
So I was always told this was a deck-building game. Then I was told it’s a game where you play with a hand of 2 cards, neither of these is true. It’s a hand and resource management game more similar to Res Arcana than any other game I’ve played before. A game I also played for the first time the same weekend at the UK Games Expo 2021.
The theme in Everdell is good, the art is cute, the resources are really nice and the core gameplay is pretty good.
I just don’t see where you go forward? I know there are a few expansions that probably add a few things but it’s just not that interesting. You get what you’re given and you do what you can but it does feel a little lucky?
The cards that chain only have value if you happen to get the card they chain from. This is similar to 7 Wonders but there you draft cards so there’s a chance you’ll see it. Also, if you don’t want it you can pass it on. Here cards are a real resource themselves so a dead card is pretty much worthless.
So all in all, Everdell is a nice game, it’s just not that great.
Jesta ThaRogue