Review: Everdell Silverfrost

Introduction & Overview

On the other side of the snow-capped mountains of Crestaguja, south of the Everdell valley, lies the rugged region of Silverfrost. There, critters brave the cold seasons to enjoy the serene beauty of this land and the warmth of a loyal community. It is up to you to build and maintain a city in this inhospitable landscape. You must clear accumulated snow, light fires to keep your citizens warm and thriving, and complete important missions for the Ranger Guild.

This is how we are presented with Everdell Silverfrost, designed by James A. Wilson and Clarissa A. Wilson (Everdell, Everdell Duo). First published in 2025 by Starling Games in an English version. The illustrations are handled by Enggar Adirasa (Everdell Duo, Mistfall) and Lukas Siegmon (Age of Innovation, Hallertau).

It is published in Spain by Maldito Games (the game is language-dependent on many of its cards, as well as the rulebook). It allows for games of 1 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 and an approximate duration of 30 minutes per player. The retail price is €55. For this review, a copy of the Spanish version by Maldito Games has been used, which the publisher itself kindly provided as a review copy.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 29.7×29.7×7.2 cm (a standard square box like Ticket to Ride), we find the following elements:

• Main Board (cardboard)
• 3D Mountain Board (cardboard)
• 4 3D Watchtowers (cardboard)
• Alternative Mountain Board (cardboard)
• Snow Reward Tile (cardboard)
• Storm Tile (cardboard)
• 8 Chimney Tokens (cardboard)
• 56 Snow Tokens (cardboard)
• 36 Fire Tokens (cardboard)
• 36 1-Point Victory Tokens (cardboard)
• 10 5-Point Victory Tokens (cardboard)
• 24 Meeples (6 of each color) (wooden)
• 4 Snowshoes (plastic)
• 24 Wood Tokens (cardboard)
• 24 Moss Tokens (cardboard)
• 24 Copper Tokens (cardboard)
• 24 Acorn Tokens (cardboard)
• 10 Paw Tokens for Solo Mode
• 155 Standard Cards (63×88 mm):
  • 123 Main Cards
  • 8 Map Cards for Solo Mode
  • 20 Scheme Cards for Solo Mode
  • Tactic Card for Solo Mode
  • 3 Reference Cards for Solo Mode
• Small Cards (44×63 mm):
  • 27 Big Critter Cards
  • 28 Lowland Mission Cards
  • 14 Highland Mission Cards
  • 24 Snowstorm Cards
• Rulebook

How to Play

Everdell Silverfrost is a reimagining of the original game that combines card engine building with worker placement set in a freezing mountainous region, where each player must manage resources to build their own animal city and survive the harsh weather conditions. Players have a main board topped by a three-dimensional mountain filled with big critters and snow tokens. During their turn, players alternate actions to deploy workers to basic locations, play cards from their hand or from the shared valley reserve by paying their cost, or prepare to change seasons by recalling their figures and triggering new cold waves. The main actions allow players to gather resources, accumulate fire to light mountain beacons and summon the help of big critters, use chimneys to play cards for free, complete highland or lowland missions at the explorer guild, or advance along the journey track in the final phase of the game. A central element of the game is the accumulation of snow, which temporarily blocks the effects and points of city cards unless fire is spent to clear it. Once the final spring round is completed, and after calculating points for constructions, achieved goals, bonuses for cleared snow, and accumulated tokens, the player with the highest score wins.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Main Board, which is made up of two elements. On one hand, the Main Board represents the valley terrain where basic action spaces, the guild area for missions, the final journey track, and the card market area called the Valley are arranged. On the upper part, the Mountain Board with Watchtowers is assembled—a three-dimensional structure simulating snow-capped peaks where the general supply of snow tokens, available big critter cards, and watchtowers or beacons that players can light are placed (this element can be replaced by a flat board included in the game). Both elements have action spaces where players deploy their meeples to activate them.

Let’s move on to the Meeples. These are wooden figures representing the different animal species that make up each player’s team of workers, whose numbers increase as they progress through the seasons. Players can place these meeples on two types of action spaces (if they only show one paw, they can only be occupied by a single meeple, whereas if they show multiple paws, any number of meeples can be placed). For their part, the snowshoes are accessories attached to one of these figures at the start of the game to formally designate it as the Explorer, which has the ability to share action spaces that usually only admit one meeple, or failing that, generate an additional fire token if it decides to activate in an unoccupied space.

Many of the action spaces allow players to obtain Resources, which represent the basic natural production materials of the environment. Thus, we have four types: birch wood, moss, copper, and acorns.

These resources will be essential to play the Critter and Construction Cards that will bring the players’ cities to life. They are divided into five color categories according to their behavior: green cards trigger production of goods, blue cards grant ongoing advantages, beige cards apply an immediate, one-time effect, red cards open up new exclusive action spaces, and purple cards grant extra points at the end of the game based on specific criteria. Each card has a resource cost on its left side and a lower band indicating its effect. Each player has fifteen spaces to play cards in their tableau, although some cards state they do not take up space or can share a space with others. Many of these cards show a fire symbol on their right side with a card type that allows playing a card of that type for free. Below that is the amount of victory points they provide at the end of the game if they are part of the player’s city.

To be able to play cards for free, it will be necessary to use the Chimney Tokens that players progressively acquire as they move through the seasons. If a player has at least one of these tokens, they can be placed on construction cards that players have already built in their personal tableaus and which have a slot enabled for them, allowing the free recruitment of corresponding critter cards, requiring only the payment of one fire unit instead of their usual resource cost. The chimney tokens will remain on the cards, although some effects allow players to retrieve them.

The Fire Tokens simulate flames and lit torches that work as one of the vital energy resources of the game. Players obtain them mainly by visiting hot springs on the board, by using their explorer in unoccupied spaces, or as a direct bonus based on the number of cards built in their city during a season change. They serve as the mandatory currency to clear snow tokens that obstruct cards and actions, as well as to fund the use of chimneys and allow access to the more advanced action spaces on the board like the watchtowers or the final journey.

Every time a player changes seasons, a storm occurs. This is represented by the Snowstorm Cards that are revealed during the phase in which players recall their workers and prepare to welcome a new weather season. Each card shows an illustration and a specific indicator dictating the exact spot in the player’s area or on the board where a new snow token from the general supply must be placed.

The Snow Tokens represent the harsh winter weather and start the game grouped at the peak of the mountain board. As the seasons change or certain weather events are revealed, these tokens are distributed both across the action spaces of the main board and onto the highest-value cards in the players’ cities. If an action space or a card has a snow token on it, that space or card is blocked, preventing that action space from being visited, card effects from being used, or cards from scoring at the end of the game.

The cost of clearing snow tokens is indicated by the Storm Tile. At the beginning of the game, it shows a side indicating that the cost to clear a snow token is one fire flame. The moment the first player decides to transition to the winter season, this tile flips over, showing the new cost to remove snow tokens (now two fire flames).

Each snow token a player removes is placed in a personal pool, since, at the end of the game, players will be rewarded for them. This reward is shown on the Snow Reward Tile, which determines how victory points will be awarded at the end of the game. On one side, each token has its own value and the player with the most tokens gets a small extra bonus, while on the other side, the tokens themselves have no value and the player with the most tokens gets a large reward in the form of points.

On the mountain board, we have the watchtowers, which feature a special action space costing one fire token. Each of these spaces allows activating the effect of one of the Big Critter Cards laid out on the mountain (each associated with an amount of victory points according to its position in the row).

The Victory Point Tokens represent the direct awards obtained by players. They are gained immediately as a reward when activating watchtower action spaces on the mountain or through the resolution of certain card effects and completed missions. Their value will be tallied as victory points at the end of the game.

Finally, we have the Mission Cards, which replace the traditional events from Everdell and present specific objectives divided into two types: Highland Missions, which are placed face-up next to the guild and are available for any player to claim if they meet the requirements first, and Lowland Missions, which will be in the players’ possession and can be revealed to be completed by performing a specific action. Each mission provides a certain amount of victory points at the end of the game if the player manages to complete them before their last turn. Uncompleted missions carry no penalty.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the main board in the center of the table and place the mountain board along its top edge.
2. Form a general supply with the resources, fire tokens, victory point tokens, and snow tokens.
3. Place one watchtower per player on the mountain.
4. Shuffle the highland mission cards and place a number equal to the number of players plus one additional card face up on the edge of the board next to the guild, returning the rest to the box.
5. Shuffle all lowland mission cards and form a face-down deck with them near the guild.
6. Shuffle all big critter cards to form a face-down deck on the left side of the mountain, and then reveal one face-up card in each of the four designated mountain spaces.
   Shuffle the main deck and deploy eight cards face up in the valley. If duplicate cards appear in this space, stack them together by name and fill the empty gaps with new cards drawn from the deck.
7. Place the main deck face down near the left side of the board, leaving space for the discard pile, initially empty and face down, on the right side.
8. Place the winter’s wrath tile on the board showing the side that indicates one fire.
9. To prepare the snowstorm deck, if playing with fewer than four people, remove the cards marked for four players, and do the same for three players if there are fewer than three participants in the game; then shuffle the remaining cards and place them in a face-down deck in their corresponding space on the board.
10. Choose which side of the snow clearance reward tile will be used for the duration of the game.
11. Each player chooses a critter type and receives two of those workers.
12. Each player equips one of these two workers with snowshoes to designate it as their explorer, placing it along with the other worker in their play area. The other four workers of their color are placed in the seasons area at the top of the board: one in autumn, one in winter, and two in spring.
13. Place one chimney per player in the autumn and winter zones of the board.
14. Each participant receives one fire token for their starting supply.
15. Each player draws two lowland mission cards, secretly chooses one to keep in hand, and places the other at the bottom of the lowland mission deck.
16. Choose the starting player at random.
17. The first player draws five cards from the main deck, the second player draws six cards, the third draws seven cards, and the fourth player draws eight cards.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Everdell: Silverfrost is played over 4 seasons, starting in Summer. Players alternate turns, starting with the first player and continuing clockwise until everyone has completed the last season (Spring) and decides to pass due to being unable or unwilling to take any more actions.

On their turn, the active player must perform one of the following three main actions:

• Place a Worker. The player deploys one of their available workers to a location on the board, on a red Destination card, or on the mountain to gather resources or trigger effects.
• Play a Card. The player pays the indicated resource cost to place a card from their hand or the Valley and place it face up in front of them. If the player already has 15 cards that take up space, they cannot choose this option. The card triggers immediately if it shows an immediate or production effect. It is possible to play a card without paying its cost by using a chimney. A fire token is returned to the supply, and a chimney is placed on a construction card that doesn’t have a chimney token yet, provided the played card matches the type indicated on the card where the chimney token is placed.
• Prepare for Season. If they have deployed all their available workers, the player can change seasons. To do this, they recall their workers, receive new workers according to the season they are transitioning to, and execute the production steps and weather events of the new season. Depending on the season being transitioned to, proceed as follows:
  • Autumn. Receive one fire token for each card built in the city, gain a new worker, a chimney token, and activate all green production cards. Finally, reveal two snowstorm cards and assign snow to the indicated positions, along with three snow tokens on the player’s highest-value cards (in case of a tie, follow the priority order).
  • Winter. Receive one fire token for every two cards without snow in the city, add one worker and a chimney token. The first player to reach this season unleashes the Winter’s Wrath (replaces the Big Critters and doubles the cost of clearing snow to 2 Fire for the rest of the game). Reveal three storm cards (two in 3 or 4-player games) and assign snow to the indicated positions, along with four snow tokens on the player’s highest-value cards (in case of a tie, follow the priority order).
  • Spring. Receive one fire token for every two cards clear of snow, obtain 2 new workers, and reactivate green production. Reveal one snowstorm card and assign snow to the indicated positions, along with two snow tokens on the player’s highest-value cards (in case of a tie, follow the priority order).

Additionally, at any time during their turn, when placing a worker or playing a card, a player may Clear Snow. To do this, the player pays 1 or 2 fire tokens (depending on the state of the storm tile) to remove a snow token from a card in their city or from an action space where they are about to place a worker.

After this, the turn passes to the next player. If a player passes in spring, their game ends, and they wait for the rest of the players to finish (they no longer take turns).

Game End

A player’s game ends when they have reached the end of spring and cannot (or do not wish to) perform more actions, needing to pass. After passing, the player cannot receive cards or resources, nor re-enter the game, but will still count towards determining mission requirements. Players who have not finished will continue playing until everyone has passed.

Once all players have passed, the final scoring takes place, taking into account:

• Points from the cards in their city.
• Points from the scoring criteria of purple cards in their city.
• Points from successfully completed missions.
• Points for cleared snow tokens according to the reward rules applied in the game.
• Accumulated victory point tokens.
• Points awarded by workers placed on Journey locations.

The player with the highest total score will be declared the winner. In case of a tie, the following criteria are used:

• Whoever cleared the most snow tokens.
• Whoever completed a higher number of missions.
• Whoever has the highest amount of fire tokens.
• Whoever has the highest amount of total remaining resources.

If equality remains even after this, the players share the victory.

Variants

Solo Mode. The player faces an automated rival named Paws Hammerthorn. Setup is similar to a two-player game, giving Paws workers and his own mission deck, though he doesn’t have a hand of cards. Each turn of the opponent is governed by revealing a plan card over a map card, which determines whether he must place a worker or play a card, specifying the location or card to choose. Paws plays cards for free, ignores their text, scores points, and blocks board spaces, removing snow automatically and at no cost. If he runs out of workers, he will change seasons after the real player’s turn, executing the corresponding steps. At the end of spring, the final tally is made. In case of a tie, Paws takes the victory, so the player must beat him in points to win.

Personal Opinion

Since time immemorial, when a game becomes a bestseller, publishers try to keep it in the spotlight by publishing expansions with a certain regularity. And, at least in terms of impact, I’d say the technique works, even when many of those expansions are skippable. But completionism is an aspect to be exploited.

Still, there comes a point where it is difficult to stretch the rubber band any further and the number of expansions becomes unmanageable, leading to fatigue and laziness among those who have accumulated too many concepts around the original design—it’s no longer as simple as setting up and playing, but you have to prepare and remember many elements instead. We are reaching a point where expansions become a disease for the base game.

One of the first publishers to realize this was Hans im Glück. Thus, when in 2019 they published Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan (here is its tocho-review), it received quite a bit of criticism for publishing a different base game instead of launching a second expansion, given that the vast majority of elements from the base game were used in this new reimplementation of The Voyages of Marco Polo (here is its tocho-review).

And, although from a completionist’s perspective it’s a hassle to accumulate even bigger boxes (or to just let go and keep only a base game), the reality is that expansions, except in specific cases, are a barely profitable product, since it is estimated that between five and ten copies of the base game need to be sold to sell one copy of an expansion. If you turn the expansion into a standalone base game, the chances of selling more copies of that independent game increase.

This is how franchises have been generated with base games that, in addition to their expansions, have branched into a series of spin-offs. Off the top of my head, series like Azul (here is its tocho-review), Terraforming Mars (here is its tocho-review), Forest Shuffle (here is its tocho-review) and, of course, Everdell (here is its tocho-review) come to mind.

All this preamble is to brace yourselves because today we are analyzing an installment from exactly the last franchise I mentioned. Let’s check what this Everdell Silverfrost brings to the ecosystem of games designed by the Wilsons, not without first thanking Maldito Games for providing the review copy that makes this tocho-review possible.

Since this is a reimplementation, we will refer to many concepts of the base game in a comparative way. That’s why if you don’t know it and/or don’t remember which aspects seemed positive and which negative to me, I recommend checking the Everdell tocho-review (linked a couple of paragraphs above) to have the proper context.

In Everdell Silverfrost, we once again lead a group of anthropomorphic animals to build the best possible city by gathering fifteen cards in our tableau that represent critters and constructions. The fundamental goal remains optimizing our plays to accumulate the highest amount of victory points. But the enchanted valley gives way to a harsh environment where snow will test our ability to adapt.

The core of the game is exactly the same as in the original game, that is, card development by managing a hand of up to eight cards and sending workers to gather resources. We still have that “forced synergy” where a construction allows playing a specific critter for free.

This first change seems relevant and interesting to me, because now the cards are not as intimately linked as in Everdell, where a construction allowed playing a specific critter for free. Now some constructions (not all) allow playing a critter from one of the five existing types in the game (the same ones as in Everdell), with the catch that two elements are needed.

On one hand, the chimneys, which work similarly to the door tokens in Everdell Duo (here is its tocho-review), requiring the player to have at least one of them available in their personal supply. Each player will only receive two chimneys in the entire game (one in each of the first two season changes). On the other hand, there is still a cost in fire tokens. It is much lower than the resource cost, but it forces the player to have at least one fire token in their personal pool.

The second relevant change compared to Everdell is the replacement of events with missions. Shared events are replaced by shared missions, and special events are replaced by private events. All these events establish a relatively generic criterion (by no means as specific as those in the base game, which mostly required specific cards) and, interestingly, a comparative one (in the case of shared ones), which slightly elevates interaction by generating small racing dynamics to be the first to reach the specified condition ahead of rivals. Moreover, to complete them now there is a generic action instead of one per event.

These two changes improve the experience because, without barely changing mechanically, we enormously reduce the impact of luck when resolving turns. Now we won’t have the need to fish for specific cards and we can focus on trying to generate the most interesting synergies with whatever shows up.

Another twist is applied to the variable action spaces of the original game. These have now become big critter cards, each with a powerful effect whose only activation cost is having a fire token. In addition, the longer a critter goes without being summoned, the more victory points it awards (besides its effect). And, after executing it, it is discarded and a new critter enters the supply.

Once again, a hit, because it adds variability and versatility to the games without really introducing a new concept. Yes, it is true that you have to maintain the supply of big critter cards, but the benefit achieved with it justifies the “sacrifice” of time it requires.

As the only truly original concept of the game, we have the snow. Every time a player changes seasons, they will see snow accumulate both on the shared board (either on valley cards or action spaces) and on their own cards, disabling them as long as the snow remains on them.

Associated with the snow we have the fire, which is a new resource that we will also generate when changing seasons based on the number of cards in our city. With this fire, besides being able to play cards “for free” using chimneys and activating the action spaces of the big critters, players can remove one snow token per turn—either from their play area or from the main board if they are going to play the card or activate the action space where the snow token is located, freeing the corresponding element.

At the end of the game, players will be rewarded with victory points based on the number of snow tokens they have removed throughout the game, with two scoring criteria available: one more generous with players (giving a small reward to the one who worked the hardest), and another more competitive, where the most active player in removing snow tokens will be heavily rewarded.

It seems like an interesting addition that, on one hand, fights against the players and, on the other, gives a lot of weight to the new fire resource. Players will want to use it to compete for the snow prize, but if they get careless, they might not have enough fire to activate a critter or play a card via a chimney.

Thus, we could say that this Everdell Silverfrost is a highly polished version of the base game, without additives (there are no elements we can identify from the numerous expansions that the base game has). This carries the problem that, as a game, it is redundant. It makes no sense to own both games. And if you own Everdell with expansions, the logical thing is to keep the original.

Now, if you have never had a game from the saga in your collection, without a doubt Everdell Silverfrost is clearly a better design. I wouldn’t be surprised if, if this reboot of the franchise works, expansions start being published. But base game against base game, the title we are dealing with today is superior.

In all other aspects, what was said back in the day with Everdell holds true. Thus, regarding scalability, it is a game clearly designed for two players, since the interaction is not high enough for a larger number of players to improve the experience. Even more so now that players have a meeple that can bypass the blocking restriction on action spaces. I’m not saying it doesn’t work well at three or four players, but the downtime will be greater and the probability of a player finishing their game several turns ahead of the rest increases, which for me has always been an issue. That’s why I prefer Everdell Duo, where the number of turns is balanced.

As for replayability, I’d say it’s slightly higher than that of the original game, since, while having a similar deck of construction and critter cards, here we have two additional decks that rotate, such as the big critters and the personal missions, to which we add the interference of storms that will block action spaces randomly.

Let’s move on to production. Here there is indeed a slight step down in level compared to Everdell, since the resources are made of cardboard, although thanks to this, the retail price of this version is more competitive. The wooden elements have original shapes and the cardboard ones have acceptable thickness and punch quality. The cards feature very good weight, a linen finish, and magnificent snap (though sleeving is recommended). Once again we have a three-dimensional behemoth, although in this version there are two advantages over Everdell. First, the mountain is assembled much more quickly than the tree, and second, the game itself includes a replacement flat board in case you don’t want to set up the mountain. A nice touch. The rulebook is well-structured and leaves no room for doubt.

On an artistic level, Lukas Siegmon takes over from Andrew Bosley, who had endowed Everdell with a very recognizable style, so he had a tough act to follow. However, I must highlight the great work achieved by the German illustrator with a cozy, detailed, and deeply nostalgic style. The charismatic anthropomorphic animals burst with expressiveness, while the landscapes and structures—from cozy burrows to imposing snow-capped peaks—convey a magical and comforting atmosphere. Likewise, the masterful use of lighting and chiaroscuro, with golden glows emanating from campfires, windows, and lanterns, provides a beautiful three-dimensionality. It’s true that it might be a more sober and darker style than the original game, but I like it better.

And let’s wrap this up. Everdell Silverfrost arrives as a soft reboot of the franchise. A design that takes all the concepts of the original game and applies a few adjustments to minimize the impact of luck and raise the difficulty level. This means that the game still bases its core on effective worker placement and tight hand management to develop synergies. The success of loosening card compatibility (while reducing how many times you can resort to this option) and the introduction of a racing dynamic to resolve shared missions transform the flow of the games, reducing the impact of luck in favor of constant tactical adaptation. Furthermore, the interaction between fire and snow adds a point of friction, forcing players to balance the optimization of their combos with the clearance of their own play areas on a board that feels alive and hostile. A smooth and mature proposal that, face to face, surpasses its predecessor (although without managing to dazzle). For all this, I give it a…