Shuffling the moorlands

🌳 Forest Shuffle is a light but combo-ey card game that took the world by storm 2 years ago when it was released, and it is still very popular. So much so that there have been three expansions for it already, and now the most recent ‘edition’ is Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor 🐏, a standalone game, which brings us to swampy moorlands.

Even though it is a new standalone release, gameplay is practically the same.
👉Each turn you either play 1 card or draw 2 cards. Cards can be Trees and Shrubs (or the new Moors) which are needed to hold other cards. Other cards are split into two halves and show creatures and plants that have all kinds of instant abilities and scoring conditions. Assembling a well scoring ecosystem is what makes the game incredibly fun, but also how you have to pay for cards by discarding other cards, so you are constantly evaluating the options. 🙃 The end game trigger is also the same: you play until the 3rd winter card appears from the deck, then you immediately go into scoring, which is a real challenge in arithmetics. 🧮😄

Moors are a new addition. These are like Trees but are placed horizontally, and you can only place cards above or below them (though they can hold 2 top & 2 bottom). There are also certain animals that have to be specifically placed into Moors.

Another change are the caves. While they function mostly the same (certain effects tuck cards behind your cave for extra points), they also have an additional ability like asymmetrical player powers. At the beginning players draft a cave and apply its effect. These effects are mostly about variable setup changes in the beginning of the game, but they don’t really have a long lasting effect.

💬 So that is mostly it. It's basically Forest Shuffle, with tiny differences, perhaps somewhat streamlined.
Do you *need* it, if you have the original? Honestly, no.
Will you want it? Probably yes, it's more Forest Shuffle nonetheless. 🤭
I guess it will come down to how much you love the game and if you want more of the same.