Everdell: Collector's Edition

Cute game, nothing new, but well balanced and easy to play

Like New. Excellent condition.

Everdell is a game of contrasts. Initially, you are charmed by the adorable artwork of woodland creatures and their idyllic dwellings. The rulebook starts with an exquisite presentation of the setting, making you feel that you are travelling to that enchanted valley, “beneath the boughs of towering trees, among meandering streams and mossy hollows”. Sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder that some reviewers thought that Everdell is the closest tabletop counterpart to the Wind in the Willows, a book which served as inspiration for the much better known The Hobbit. But then you have to take your first action, and you start feeling the weight of that decision. As you start with no resources and with just 2 workers, you begin wondering whether you will accomplish anything in the course of the game, and the limit of 15 cards in your tableau seems like a mirage. Everything changes again once you see how you can play critters for free, how you can chain actions, how you can take advantage of various bonuses. As time passes, your initial settlement is slowly turning into a full-fledged village, and your concern now becomes how to discard cards that are no longer needed in order to maximize the number of points at the end of the game. There’s a lot that feels familiar about Everdell. You have your standard worker placement, with either shared or exclusive action spaces. You have your tableau building, with card abilities that allow you to play more and better cards later on. You have your play a card for free if you have already played another card mechanic, à la 7 Wonders (which feels more thematic in Everdell, as critters with different occupations are basically coming to serve their roles in constructions that you have already invested in). There’s also a lot that feels fresh. Having the option to play both cards that you draw blindly from the deck and to which only you have access as well as cards from the Meadow that are accessible to all players adds a unique spin to the game. It provides some tension between players, as you have to take into account the fact that a card that you feel lukewarm about could represent a much needed part of another player’s engine. Even if you are reluctant to mess with other players’ plans, it’s still neat to have more cards to choose from! One unique aspect of the game is also the fact that cards are played independently of the worker placement part, which makes the game more strategic, in that you have to ponder the order of your actions.

1-4 players

1p