Brushwood

• Designer: Filippo Landini
• Publisher: Korea Board Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Brushwood is a peaceful yet strategic set-collection game for 2–4 players. Players take on the role of hikers navigating a vast, ever-changing forest trail to observe local wildlife, pick up berries, and forage for mushrooms.

On each turn, a player moves the shared hiker meeple one to three spaces forward along a trail of forest card stacks, then claims the top card from the trail space where they end their movement. When moving more than one space, they must place a berry token on each card they pass, making those cards more valuable for whoever lands there later. As the players collect the trail cards, they build a personal hiking route, a linear tableau which they strategically arrange to maximize their end-game points from animal sightings and mushroom foraging. When foraging, players can aim for high-value mushroom tokens by collecting enough cards of a specific type or act quickly to secure available tokens before others do.

The game ends when the forest trail begins to thin out, and players score points based on their berry majorities, mushroom tokens, animal sightings, and clever use of binoculars and birdhouses.

To set up, place the board on the table and arrange the mushroom tokens in the central basket.  Place the hiker meeple on the entrance space.  Create the forest card deck (based on player count) and then make 8 equal stacks of them around the board.  Mix the berry tokens in the bag.  Each player takes a starting tile and puts it on the table in front of themselves.

On a turn, the active player moves the hiker 1 to 3 spaces clockwise on the trail. If they move more than 1 space, draw a random berry token from the bag and place it on each passed card.  Take the top card from the space where you stop the hiker and add it to your route.  If there are berry tokens on it, put these near your start card.  If there are spaces without cards, skip them – they do not get berries and they do not count as spaces moved.

If the card you took has mushrooms on it, and you have enough mushrooms on your entire route, you can claim a bonus marker from the center of the board.  Place the token facedown on your most recent card; you have now scavenged all the mushrooms of that type on that card and behind.  You cannot use those again to get another token, but you could gain a second token of that type should you find more on your hike.  It is optional to take a mushroom token as you can wait until you have more mushrooms to take a more valuable token (if it is still available).

The game end is triggered when two of the eight spaces are out of cards. Continue play until all players have had the same number of turns. Then, flip the board over to reveal the scoring track.

• Berries – score for most and 2nd most of each of the three types of berries, the scoring chart is found on each start tile
• Mushrooms – score for each mushroom tile claimed
• Animals – Each animal has a point value underneath it, score for all
• Birdhouse – Each scores points for particular types of birds, score based on the formula printed underneath the birdhouse
• Binoculars – 1 point for every bird within 2 cards distance in each direction of the binoculars

The player with the most points wins.  There is no tiebreaker.

My thoughts on the game

Brushwood is right on the edge of being a “cozy” game that so many gamers are talking about right now.  Move the hiker around the board, choose the card and add it to your location.  Enjoy the beautiful art on the cards as you construct your walk through the forest.  That being said, it’s not so easy going that every card will be good for you – you’ll definitely have to use the old noggin’ a bit to take the best card you can and perhaps prevent your opponents from getting the cards that they covet.

There are a lot of different ways to score points, and of course, the cards will each offer a different selection of those scoring options.  The berries don’t actually come on the cards but are instead collected as cards get passed over, thus making less desirable cards become more desirable.   The game blissfully limits you to only three steps per turn, so that even the most AP prone player only has three cards to consider.

I have found that the Berries, Mushrooms and Animals tend to have the larger point payoffs, but every card could be useful depending on your strategy – and again, most cards have a couple of different scoring features on them, so you’ll have to look at all the parts of the cards in your reach.  The high end mushroom bonuses have the best payoffs, but there is a bit of a race to get them, and there is the chance that you could miss out on scoring them as you can only collect the scoring tiles on a turn where you have taken that type of mushroom on a card.  If you push your luck near the end of the game, you might end up in a situation where you miss out completely.

The other part of the card drafting that should not be ignored is the defensive part – if you know the player after you wants a particular card, you can consider taking it yourself or perhaps moving the hiker past that card so that it cannot be taken by the next player.  For times where two cards are of similar value to me, this could definitely be the tiebreaker.  Yes, of course, this means that you’ll be leaving more berries behind – but heck, you have as much chance as the other players to benefit from this as those new berries are also behind the hiker, so they’ll have to wait for the next pass.

Make sure you have a big space when playing the game – the walks through the forest are surprisingly long and you’ll need a fair bit of table space to keep everything on one line.

Brushwood is a simple game to learn, though it may take a game or two for players to figure out what scoring strategy they want to pursue.  In one way, the game is easy going as every card will offer you some sort of scoring opportunity, but players that are able to get the right cards at the right time will prevail.  The decisions on which card to take are not always simple, and there is enough of this tension in the game to keep me interested.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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