You might think that this all sounds like you're almost guaranteed a win but the truth is that we lost as much as we won. This has the two-fold result that it makes your job easier and harder at the same time. That last part also happens if you miscalculate and your post-trick movement would take you past the edge of the forest. Additionally, at the end of each round, you'll need to add more gems and make the forest path smaller. But if you want more of a challenge? You can flip the game board to play a harder difficulty setting, or think much harder to try and be strategic. You CAN play Fox In The Forest Duet casually losing doesn't feel like you've failed and we didn't get angry when the other player took a risk or things didn't pan out. What Makes It More Interesting?ĭid I say simplicity? Yes and no. It also forces you to talk about other things and that shouldn't be a bad thing. In fact, the ban on discussing the game only adds to the tension.

Which makes the game a fantastic balance between playing cautiously, strategically and recklessly - or more accurately you'll occasionally need to gamble in order to win. And whilst some other cooperative trick-taking games, like The Crew, give you limited communication, this one doesn't. And why would you need those kinds of special abilities? Because Fox in the Forest Duet doesn't let you communicate about what you have in your hand. Examples include ignoring some of the movement or allowing a player to not follow suit. When you win a trick, the team marker moves across the board towards the winner depending on what cards have been played.Ĭertain cards in each suit have extra abilities. Dealing out eleven cards each, you'll play three rounds with a trump suit decided randomly each time. You'll also get gem tokens, forest tokens, a forest board and your team tracker - along with two handy reference cards. You'll get a set of cards in three beautifully rendered suits (doves, roses and stars). Game Overviewįirstly, there's the beauty and simplicity of the game. However, Foxtrot and Renegade came up with some clever tweaks to make it a fun and challenging little card game. This might make the whole thing slightly boring. Collect all the gemstones to beat the game. In essence, the game is incredibly simple: win tricks together to collect gemstones. Which makes Fox in the Forest Duet by Foxtrot and Renegade Games a worthy addition to your selection. Ones that have beautiful artwork, come in a small box, are cooperative, and play really well? Even harder. True two-player games, rather than games that have a two-player mode, can feel a little hard to come by. Run out of time or head off the end of the path with no forest spaces in reserve, then you can just keep running in defeat or shuffle the cards and start the game anew. One character allows players to exchange one card with each other, while another allows a player to change the decree card.Īt the end of a round, you add five gems to designated spaces, add a forest space to shorten the path, then receive a new hand of eleven cards from a freshly shuffled deck. The odd-numbered character cards have special abilities when played, allowing the trick winner to move the tracker in the direction of their choice or to ignore the footprints on one of the played cards so that you can land on just the right spot. If the tracker would move off the end of the path, return the tracker to the center of the path, then add a forest token to one end of the path, reducing the number of spaces upon which you can move (with you sliding gems next to this covered space next to the new end of the path).

If the tracker lands on a space next to a gem, the players collect one gem. The winner of the trick moves the team tracker toward them a number of spaces equal to the number of fox footprints on the cards played.

For each trick, one player leads a card, and the other must follow suit, if possible. Reveal one card as the 'decree' card to determine the trump suit. At the start of each round, shuffle the deck of thirty cards which contains three suits, each numbered 1-10 and deal each player a hand of eleven cards. To set up the game, place gem tokens on the designated spaces of the game board and the team tracker token in the center of the movement path. Collect all the gems before the end of three rounds of play, and you win!

In the two-player, co-operative trick-taking game The Fox in the Forest Duet, players team up, helping each other move through the forest.

The fox in the forest rules