Foraging in solo

Forage is a 9-card solitaire game that just launched on Kickstarter! It is part 3 of a trilogy - alongside Orchard and Grove, which work similarly, however this is our first foray into these games. It’s a straightforward concept, but it’s quite difficult to do well - and you want to score a lot, because this is mostly a beat-your-own-score game. Let’s break it down! 🕵️

Forage actually has 18 cards in it. You shuffle them and use 9 for a game. The cards are double sided, but for now let’s concentrate on their front, that depicts a 2x3 grid of terrain types, that can be green, yellow or brown - these show blackberries, chestnuts and mushrooms respectively.

You begin the game with 1 card on the table and 2 cards in the hand. On your turn you choose a card to place down on the existing card, covering up some spots, then place dice according to your card placement, draw a new card, and continue playing like this until you run out of cards. Then you just add up your pip values to find your score. 🏅

So how do the dice work? 🤔 If you overlap a terrain type with the matching terrain, you add a die there with value 1. If there was already a die there you increase its value. Values go from 1 to 3 to 6 to 10 to 15, so it is always worth it more to increase an existing die, than to bring in a new one. However if you overlap a terrain type with an incorrect one, you have to remove a die from there or place a die with the “-2” mouse face, which is not only a point penalty but it will block future card placements too. This is the primary challenge: as dice values get bigger, they also get deeper in your tableau, making it more difficult to find ways to improve them.

What about the backside of the cards? 🧐 If you want you can draw 2 of these before you start. They depict “recipes”, which are special requirements or scoring conditions, that also show a threshold you have to reach to win. This way you get a loss condition, and some variety between games. 👍

Forage is primarily about pattern recognition and finding card placements that bring you the most points. Ideal if you want some relaxation, taking your time making decisions. ☕😊