Faraway

• Designers: Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat
• Publilsher: Catch Up Games
• Players: 206
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15-20 minutes
• Played: >20 times with review copy provided by publisher

Welcome to Alula, a mysterious continent with ever-changing geography, shaped after the rhythm of the seasons. Beyond the Sea of Mists lies the mysterious continent of Alula. Roam across the land in search of its secrets, meet its inhabitants and list its wonders in order to gain more fame than your opponents.

Throughout a game of Faraway, you will play a row of 8 cards in front of you, from left to right. These cards represent the regions you will come across while exploring the lands. Characters on these cards will grant you victory points if you later fulfill the conditions they demand. At the end of the game, you walk back the same way, scoring cards in the opposite order you played them. 

So, all I want for Christmas is another copy of Faraway.  Because the one I have now is constantly in use, and I want to have a backup!  (Or a copy to loan away to everyone who asks!).  It seems fitting to write the review today then!

In Faraway, there is a deck of 68 travel cards.  Each of these cards is numbered (from 1-68) and each card may provide resources or scoring opportunities, or both.  Players start with a hand of three cards dealt to them, and there is also a drafting pool (player number plus one) face up on the table.  In the first round of the game, everyone secretly and simultaneously chooses one of their hand cards to play. The cards are revealed, and each player places their chosen card face up as the first card in their eight card journey.

The priority number is in the upper left corner.  Themewise, this represents how many hours it takes you to explore the region on the card.  Gamewise, this determines the playing order for the round.  The lowest number takes their turn first (because they were done exploring first); placing their card at the end of their travel row.  In every round other than the first, players also check to see if they discovered a sanctuary – this happens when the card they just played has a higher number than the card played in the round previous. (More on this in a bit).  The turn then ends as the player selects one of the cards from the draft pool to add to their hand.

In general, lower cards provide more resources and fewer scoring opportunities.  Higher numbered cards are the opposite.  You are somewhat motivated to play cards of increasing value in order to find sanctuaries, though you are also motivated to play lower numbered cards in order to get drafting priority – you’ll always be able to see the cards available in the draft pool, so you’ll know what you might be able to pick.  “There lies the heart of the gameplay. Throughout the game, the cards you play will serve both to set new objectives, and to meet the ones you played previously.”

So, back to the Sanctuaries – there is a separate deck of 45 smaller sanctuary cards. These cards also might provide resources, scoring opportunities, or both.  At baseline, you get to draw the top card off the Sanctuary deck when you find one.  However, if you have any Clues on your cards (little map symbols), you get to draw an additional card for each clue, and then choose one out of that bunch to keep.   Sanctuary cards can be extremely useful for scoring as they are available during your entire journey- you can think of them as permanent cards – and can be used to score any of the eight journey cards.

When each player has played their 8th card, the trip is over and it’s time to score the cards.  When I learned the game, I was told to flip all the journey cards over and then start by flipping over the 8th (most recently played) card and score it.  You are allowed to use only the icons you can see at that point – which would be that 8th card and any Sanctuary cards you managed to collect.  

Most cards have a criteria listed in order for the card to score. If you have the necessary resources, then you score the card.  Some cards give a flat point value if they score.  Others might count the number of production icons visible at the time or maybe the colors of the cards.  You can record the scores on the helpful scoring sheet.

Then, flip over the 7th card, and repeat the process until all 8 cards are scored.  Finally, look at your Sanctuary cards as they might also have scoring formulae on them (these generally do not require triggering and are always in effect).

The player with the most points wins. If there is a tie, it is broken in favor of the player who has the lowest numbered travel card in their tableau.

My thoughts on the game

As I said at the start, this game has been a hit here. It is probably my “Hit of Spiel 2023”.  It is the game I’ve played the most, and it is the game that I have shown to other people the most.  For me, this is a great combination of speed, strategy and push-your-luck.

The game itself plays blazingly fast. Some of my 2p games finish in ten minutes or so. Despite the short length, there are still always interesting decisions to be made.  Oftentimes, the initial deal of 3 cards will push you in a particular direction.  Lately, I have been enjoying the “go big or go home” strategy – if I get cards that have a high reward; say 25 points or so – I’ll play two of those as my first two cards and then spend the rest of the game chasing down the necessary resources to get those points.  If I can get 50 points from cards 1 and 2, that puts me in a good spot.  Of course, if I miss, I might end up scoring 20 points total… 

When I first learned the game, my press rep told me that he considers Faraway to have a nice learning curve.  He said in anyone’s first game, a score of 35-40 points is respectable.  Then in your second game, maybe look for 40-45.  Then once you have the hang of it, 55 points is usually a good starting goal – though at this point, usually 70ish is necessary to fight for a win around here…

Another gambit I like is to concentrate on a single resource.  I recently had a game that had 5 cards which all scored pineapples, and a number of Sanctuary cards that either scored pineapples or provided them. Being able to score those pineapples multiple times proved to be a huge point generator.

Regardless of the initial strategy chosen, you’ll also have to decide how much you’re willing to chase down the Sanctuary cards.  They can be supremely important overall because they are always active.  If you have enough Sanctuary cards, you might be able to play a high scoring card as your final card – and still be able to trigger it with your Sanctuaries!  Of course, without the Maps, you’ll be stuck top-decking it and hoping on luck to get you the right card.  With maps, you’ll increase your chances of being able to get a card you can really use.

That being said, there are still only 8 turns in the game, and you really don’t have enough time to do everything – and for me, that’s the beauty of the game.  You are pushed and pulled to do so many different things, and you simply don’t have enough time to get it all done.  Sure, sometimes the perfect card will show up in the draft display – though, if you want to ensure that you get it, you might have to sacrifice your previous turn and play a low numbered card in order to be able to draw that coveted card….

Games play out super fast, and this is the sort of game that I might play 3 or 4 in a row.  It definitely rewards risky plays, and at least for me, that’s a big plus.  Sometimes I’ll play it safe and go for the slow and steady scores, and sometimes I can go for the home run – either way, the game is over in 8 short rounds, and we’re almost always ready to go again.  This has been the most played game this fall/winter, and I don’t see any signs of it slowing down.

It’s not yet available here – but you can play it for free on BGA: https://en.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=faraway

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mark Jackson (3 plays in person, 1 on BGA): So, I was doing my devotional reading the other morning and I came across this quote from Soren Kierkegaard:

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

And I immediately wanted to play Faraway again. 

(Everything Dale says is correct: it’s clever, it’s easy-to-teach, it’s fast, it’s a heckuva lot of fun, and the BGA implementation is great as well.)

Larry (3 plays on BGA):  It’s not bad and the backwards scoring mechanism is reasonably clever.  I’m sure my play would improve with experience.  But it didn’t particularly grab me.  Right now, I’d rather be lucky than good with the card choices.  It still feels fairly chaotic and quite a few turns feature no interesting decisions at all (which might be due to my lack of experience, but still).  If the group wanted to play, I’d join in with no complaint, but I’d be just as happy if this game stays faraway from me for the rest of my life.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Mark Jackson, Eric M, Jonathan F,  Ted A, Ryan P
• I like it. Eric M, John P, Lorna, Steph H, Nate B
• Neutral.  Larry
• Not for me…