Tulikko

• Designer: Jerome Soleil and Nicolas Melet 
• Publisher: Studio H
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 mins
• Played with review copy provided by Pandasaurus

 Legend has it that Tulikko, the fire fox, lives hidden among the animal spirits in the depths of the forests of the far north. On certain winter nights, he runs so fast that he produces sparks that rise into the sky to create the Northern Lights.  Explore these mystical forests to discover the territories of the animal spirits and be the first to reveal their secrets!  Tulikko is a game of tile-laying and optimization set in a dreamlike Scandinavian world!

Carefully choose the Forest tiles by sliding them of the central board and arrange them as best you can on your personal board to accommodate your Animal Spirits.
Complete objectives and trigger special powers and be the first to place all your tokens to win the game!

To setup, each player takes a player board and the 12 animal tokens and 12 Forest tiles that match it as well as 6 River tokens.  One Landscape card of each of the three types is chosen for the game.   The four Symbol cards are also laid out.  In this area, the Aurora tiles for each color are placed with the 3 tile on top of the 4 tile.

The central board is seeded with five random neutral Forest tokens, slid into the slots in the central board in a cross pattern – note that the middle tile is hidden.  Each player also gets a random neutral Forest tile which they place on any space on their map.

The game is played in rounds, twelve at the maximum, or until at least one player has placed all of their tokens.  On each turn, the active player goes through 3 phases: Ejecting a tile, Placing said tile, Scoring Objectives.

1] Ejecting a tile – the player draws the top tile from their Forest stack, reveals it and then slides it into the central board from any of the four directions, thus ejecting the tile opposite it.  

2] Placing a tile – the ejected tile is now placed onto the player board on a spot that has the same symbol as where the player took the tile from the central board. If the newly placed tile is adjacent to a tile of the same color, you may place one of your animal tokens at the border.  If the newly placed tile is adjacent to a tile of different color, you may place a river token between the two.  You can place multiple tokens from a single tile placement, and again, all placements are optional – but the decision to place or not place can only be made at this moment.

3] Check Objectives – there are three different types of objectives: Symbol cards, Landscape cards, and Aurora Tiles

• Symbol cards – there is a card for each of the four symbols found on the player boards. If you are the first player to cover all 5 spaces on your board with that symbol, you placed up to 2 Animal Tokens on the corresponding card.  Only one player can place on each Symbol card
• Landscape Cards – there are three different types: River, Color, Shape.  On each, there is a specific arrangement of tiles/pieces to be completed. The pattern on each can be rotated but not flipped. If your board matches the pattern on the card, you may place up to 2 Animal Tokens onto that Landscape card in the area that corresponds to your animal token.  All players can achieve each Landscape card once.
• Aurora Tiles – For each color of Forest, there are 2 Aurora tiles.  The first player to place the 3rd tile of a particular color takes the 3-tile for that color.  The first player who doesn’t have the 3-tile to place the fourth forest of that color can then take the 4-tile.  Each Aurora tile has a one-time special action that can be used.

The game ends at the end of the 12th round or at the end of a round when a player has placed all 12 of their animal tokens and all 6 of their River tokens.   If only one player has placed all their tokens, that player wins.  If there is a tie, the player with the largest blob of a single color wins.  If no one has placed all their pieces, score the remaining pieces – 2 points per Animal, 1 point per River, and the player with the lowest score wins.

My thoughts on the game

Tulikko is a tactical game where you try to build the best landscape on your player board – given the choices available to you on the Forest board.  Each choice has a number of variables – not only do you choose the color of your tile to place but also the possible spaces on which you can place it.  I suppose upper level Tulikko players (which I have not yet become) would also consider where they are placing their tile in order to not set up the next player from a desired combination of color and icon.

Once you’ve chosen your tile, you place it amongst the legal options – taking into account the ability to place your player tokens as well as your river pieces.   You’re furthermore in a race for some of the three objective prizes, and all of these things will be taken into consideration as you place your tile.  Placing a pair of your tokens on an objective is one sixth of the way to victory – so those opportunities should not be ignored.

For me, the Aurora tiles are always a good target as the special abilities can be most useful when trying to get an important tile in the endgame. It’s important to remember that the only goal is to place all your pieces on your board and a lot of winning strategies have used the Aurora special abilities to allow for a final coup de grace with an unexpected tile play.

The Forest board definitely looks neat, but I’ll admit that it jams up a fair amount.  It’s not a big deal to fiddle with the tiles to allow free passage – but it also seems a bit un-necessary.  Sure it looks great, but realistically, it’s hiding the identity of a single tile, and one that was visible on the previous turn.  It also seems simpler just to lie the tiles in a cross on the table and push them around without the constraints of the multi-layered forest board.  The artwork on the tiles is great, and the colorful player boards are attractive to look at as they develop on your table.

That little bit of annoyance aside, Tulikko is a well crafted family level game. It’s easy enough to teach in a few minutes, and the icons on the boards make it easy to know your options on where to play your tiles.  That being said, there is enough going on with the achievements and tile placements to keep even the most serious gamer satisfied.   If you’re looking for an abstract game with some colorful art, this could be a nice choice.

Since my first play at Spiel 2025, there is now a US version available via Pandasaurus and it should be available through all the regular retail channels.  https://pandasaurusgames.com/products/tulikko?srsltid=AfmBOopnJiMR7eeJ0upLpaF633GjpSwWp7UI4UFvPxlJDLbUd9tVELKy

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…