Countryside

• Designer: Peter Prinz
• Publisher: nanox games 
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 60 mins
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Countryside, you are a farmer with a vision, and you want to build the most thriving and efficient farm the land has ever seen. To do so, you will expand your territory by playing area cards and cultivate it with trees, vegetables, animals, and more. Will you raise live-stock in lush meadows, plant trees in your garden, or focus on growing hearty crops? Every decision counts as the right combination of items, perfect timing, and smart planning will bring you step by step closer to your goal. Balance your strategy and manage your resources wisely in this competitive game as you race to earn the title of the region’s top farmer.

To set up the game, assemble the score track and then select three goal tiles to go underneath (one each of three types). Shuffle the 5 area card decks and place them above the scoring track.  Each player gets their own player board, placing the four workers at the top and covering the 12 spaces on the bottom-most action areas with markers.  Players take their commodity tokens and set them so they have 1 coin and 14 baskets (they are double sided tokens).  If a basket is played on a card, it is considered to be full of whatever that card makes.

Each player now draws one card from each of the 5 area decks.  They also get a starting hand of project cards.  After examining the project cards, each player chooses three of the area cards to keep face up in front of them. The discarded ones are placed at the bottom of the corresponding deck.  These area cards offer a personal goal at the bottom of the area.  Each player also discards one of their starting project cards.  Finally, seven cards from the project deck are dealt beneath the goal tiles to form the market.

The game is played in a number of rounds, with the endgame triggered as soon as a player reaches the end of the scoring track (looping back over to the start).  When this happens, two more full rounds are played.

On a player’s turn, there are only two options- either place a worker OR end the day.  To place a worker, you take one of your available workers and put it upon an unoccupied action space on your player board. Then you do the action depicted on that space.  At the start of the game, there are six options open to you – but you can open up other actions over the course of the game:

• Draw 4 cards from the display – they must all be adjacent to each other (can wrap around) in the market
• Use 2 hours of sunlight to play a card (card cost in the upper left) and then draw 2 adjacent cards from the market.  When you play a card, you must have enough hours to spend to play it (you can always spend a coin to generate an extra hour), and there must also be room for it.  Each card corresponds to a particular area, and you must have that type of area card in play – with capacity for your card.
• Use 5 hours of sunlight to play a card
• Use 3 hours of sunlight to play a card, but you may discard card(s) from your hand, each giving an additional hour of sunlight
• Draw two area cards, keeping one
• Fulfill up to 2 goals. Place a marker from your player board onto the goal, and then score the appropriate points. You can score either goals on the central board or from your own area cards. Some goals require you to simply own certain things while others require you to spend those things.  Goals on the central board have a bit of a race effect as some marker spaces have bigger rewards than others.  As you move markers onto goals, you will open up new action spaces on your player board.  As soon as an action is completely free of markers, you can start choosing that action.

Some of the additional actions include:

• Use 3 hours to play a card, then use 2 hours to play a different card
• Use 3 hours to play a card, then gain 3 coins
• There are a few one-time bonus effects that happen upon unlocking

You can also choose to end the day. You are obligated to do this if you have no workers left available, though you can choose to do it before that time. Count how many workers you have used to that point, and per the chart at the top of your board, you will get bonus actions if you return 2, 3 or 4 workers at the end of the day.  You will likely trigger a market action:

• Draw a card from the display
• Discard 3 cards from you hand for 3 coins
• Convert any number of filled baskets from your cards into coins
• Discard a card to refresh the card display and then choose one of the new cards

There are also more advanced market actions that you can unlock as you achieve goals.

At the end of your turn, check to see if the game end is triggered (because you have moved to the end of the scoring track).  If so, play exactly two more rounds – the game will end with the player who triggered the end.  Refill the display of project cards, and bring your hand down to the limit of 12 cards.

At the end of the two extra rounds, the player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most coins left.

My thoughts on the game

Countryside has been one of my sleeper hits from Spiel 2025.  Nanox is still a relatively new publishing house, but their catalog of three games (Evenfall, CloudAge and Countryside) is definitely one with much promise.   When I’m asked to describe this game, I call it “a big ole deck of cards” game.  The project deck is huge, and each game, you’ll have to figure out how to best play the cards that you get in your hand.  In this sense, it feels a lot like Forest Shuffle, Wondrous Creatures, Ark Nova, etc.   

I also used to describe the game as a worker placement game – but in reality, it’s more of an action selection game.  You’re never competing with other players for an action as each player has their own board.  There is also a bit of an engine building feel as each player will likely take a unique path in their upgrades on their board as well. Finally, there is definitely an efficiency challenge in Countryside – trying to use the fewest actions to provide you with the things required to complete your goals.

As the game moves on, you’re mostly in your own little world.  Playing cards to your areas, trying to achieve goals – then adding new areas as you will need more space for more cards!  There is a bit of interaction between the players, mostly racing for the public goals and occasionally taking cards from the display that you think your opponents need – but this interaction is admittedly minimal.  This is my sort of game where I’m left alone in my own little area to control and nurture.

Each game plays out a bit differently not only because of the card luck but also due to the different public goals.  While everyone is competing for the same goals, they may cause you to approach the game differently – i.e. saving more coins, or trying to play a specific sort of card, etc.    

The goals that require you to spend full baskets can be the most challenging – mostly because each player has a fixed set of 15 coin/basket icons.  If you’re saving up for multiple basket goals, you could very well run into a situation where you can’t generate enough coins to do the things that you need.  Coins can be hard to come by, and you’ll often need them to generate enough hours to play the big cards out of your hand.

What really has attracted me to this game over many of the other “big ole deck of card” games is that the scoring here is done in real time.  While I’m putting together my huge tableau of cards, each time I accomplish a goal or score points from an action – I move my score marker forward.  There is no huge resolution of scoring at the end, which is one of my big beefs with Forest Shuffle – in Countryside, I know where I stand scorewise at all times.  I don’t need an app to score the game nor do I have to figure out what each of my 32 cards does.

I do like the physical production of the game. First, I love the fact the box size is small – there is definitely very little air in the box here. The art on the cards and the cover is appealing to me – looking like a colored pencil drawing.  I will note that some of the icons are a bit small on the cards – but since this is a game where you’re mostly undisturbed in your own area, you don’t need to identify cards from too far away.  Most of the icons are also explained on the player aid. 

Games are definitely coming in under an hour – now that we are familiar with the rules.  Each player’s engine tends to build slowly but steadily, and it is not uncommon for points to come in bunches once the plan is in motion. The timing of the engine build pairs up well with the endgame target score; usually the target is hit just as my plan reaches full speed.  You get two more turns to run your board and then the game ends.   I love the fact I can play this twice (maybe three times) in the time it would take a ponderous Ark Nova to play out.  Of course, YMMV on that.  For me, this has been a great find, and the second Peter Prinz game to be the darling of Essen for me (along with Jenseits von Theben).

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Doug G.: This one fell completely flat for Shelley and me, to the point that we didn’t even do a review of it on our site. Maybe I’ll need to have Dale teach it and he can show us the intricacies we missed.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y
• I like it.  John P, Ryan P
• Neutral.
• Not for me… Doug G.