Review: Forest Shuffle

Introduction & Overview

The forest is full of life: animals run around the glades looking for plants and insects to feed on. Some prefer the dense tree canopies, while others favor the lush undergrowth. However, one thing these forest creatures do have in common is that they only feel safe in the shelter of the trees.

This is the premise of Forest Shuffle, a design by Kosch (FYFE). First published in 2023 by Lookout Games in English and German versions. The illustrations are handled by Toni Llobet, marking his first foray into the world of modern board games.

It is published in Spanish by Asmodee Ibérica (the game is language-dependent with text on some cards, in addition to the rulebook). It allows for 2 to 4 players, with a minimum recommended age of 10 and an approximate duration of 60 minutes. The MSRP is €27.99. For this review, a copy of the Spanish version by Asmodee Ibérica was used, kindly provided to us as a review copy by the publisher.

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 23×16×5 cm. (a medium rectangular box similar to Shamans), we find the following components:

• 180 Cards (56×87 mm.):
  • 66 Tree Cards
  • 48 Top/Bottom Cards
  • 44 Left/Right Cards
  • 3 Winter Cards
  • 5 Cave Cards
  • 14 Reference Cards
• Clearing Board
• Score Pad
• Rulebook

How to Play

Forest Shuffle is a tableau-building card game featuring three types of cards: trees, left/right split cards, and top/bottom split cards. The twist is that trees serve as the foundation for the other cards, so that a single tree allows you to tuck one top card, one bottom card, and one card on each side underneath it. On each turn, the active player chooses between playing a card (paying its cost by placing as many cards from their hand into the market as indicated) or drawing 2 cards (from the market and/or the deck). The market is cleared whenever 10 or more cards accumulate there at the end of a player’s turn. The game ends when a third Winter card—shuffled into the deck—is revealed, leading to final scoring.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Tree Cards. These act as the support for the remaining cards, as up to four more cards can be played onto each tree, tucked under one of its four sides. There are eight species, each with an associated icon. These cards feature an effect on their bottom banner that triggers upon playing the card or during end-game scoring. They serve well to explain card anatomy: the top-left corner shows the card’s cost, the top-right corner displays its associated icon, and the bottom banner contains the effect. The cost of playing a card is paid using other cards from your hand, giving them a dual-purpose nature. Some effects only activate if all cards discarded to pay the cost match the color/icon requirement of the effect. It is worth mentioning that any card can be played face down as a sapling tree, though it will not yield points.

On the other hand, we have the Top/Bottom and Left/Right Cards. These cards represent the flora and fauna of the forest and share the same layout as the tree cards, except each card has two halves (top/bottom or left/right), effectively making each half act like an individual card (with its own cost, icon, and effects). To play one of these cards, besides discarding the required number of cards, you need a tree with the corresponding side free so you can tuck the card underneath it. Some cards score points based on set collection of unique cards, allowing you to score multiple sets if you hold duplicate cards.

All cards form a single deck into which three Winter Cards are seeded at the start of the game (specifically within the bottom third of the deck). Whenever a player draws a card and reveals one of these Winter cards, they set it aside and immediately draw another. Revealing the third Winter card triggers the end of the game.

Each player receives a Cave Card under which they can tuck cards that will count as victory points through certain card abilities.

Lastly, there is the Clearing Board, which acts as the main market where cards used to pay costs are placed, allowing other players to draw them in future turns. When 10 or more cards are present in the market at the end of a turn, all cards on the board are discarded. The board also indicates in its bottom-left corner that every time a tree is played, a card must be revealed from the deck and placed into the clearing.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the clearing board in the center of the table.
2. Set the 3 Winter cards aside.
3. Shuffle the forest card deck (trees, top/bottom, and left/right cards).
4. In games with 2/3/4/5 players, remove 30/20/10/0 cards from the deck and return them to the box.
5. Divide the remaining deck into three roughly equal piles. Take one pile, shuffle 2 of the Winter cards into it, and place it to the left of the clearing board.
6. Place the third Winter card on top of this pile.
7. Place the remaining two piles on top of the pile containing the 3 Winter cards.
8. Each player receives a Cave card and draws 6 cards from the deck, ensuring they have at least one Tree card (if not, the player has the option to discard their hand and draw 6 new cards, though they must keep this second hand).
9. Finally, select a starting player at random.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Forest Shuffle is played over an indeterminate number of turns taken in clockwise order starting with the first player, until the end of the game is triggered.

On their turn, the active player must choose one of the following two actions:

• Draw Cards. The player draws 2 cards and adds them to their hand. Each card can be drawn from the clearing board or from the top of the draw deck. A player’s hand limit is strictly 10 cards; if a player has 9 cards, they may only draw 1 card.
• Play Cards. The player plays a card from their hand to their tableau by paying its cost (discarding the required number of cards to the clearing board).
  • If it’s a tree, it is played directly in the player’s play area. If it’s a top/bottom or left/right card, it must be tucked under a tree on an available side (though some card abilities allow tucking multiple cards on the same side). Additionally, after playing a tree and resolving its effect, a card must be revealed from the deck and added to the clearing.
  • Then, card effects are resolved (if an effect is linked to the cost paid, it only triggers if all cards discarded to pay for it display the required color icon).
  • Keep in mind permanent effect cards that trigger when specific types of cards are played, resolving them at the appropriate time.
  • Any card can be played as a sapling face down. It yields no victory points on its own, but functions as a tree under which other cards can be tucked.

If a player draws a Winter card while taking cards, they place it face up next to the clearing board and immediately draw a replacement card.

If there are 10 or more cards in the clearing board at the end of a player’s turn, all of them are discarded. Likewise, players can never exceed the 10-card hand limit. If a player were to draw cards while at the limit, they simply do not draw them.

After resolving the action, turn order passes to the player on the left.

Game End

The end of the game is triggered immediately upon revealing the third Winter card. Players proceed to final scoring, adding up points for:

• Points granted by their Tree cards.
• Points granted by their Top/Bottom cards.
• Points granted by their Left/Right cards.
• 1 point per card tucked under their Cave card.

The player with the most victory points wins. In case of a tie, victory is shared.

Personal Opinion

Ever since games like Wingspan (check out its tocho-review here) or PARKS (check out its tocho-review here) consolidated themselves as widely appealing titles, turning to nature as a thematic backdrop has become a constant in modern design. There are more and more games embracing this safe, inoffensive theme due to how reliably it attracts players while steering clear of controversy.

Now comes Forest Shuffle, another tableau builder where, as the name implies, we construct a forest along with its flora and fauna. It’s time to see how it performs on the table—not without first thanking Asmodee Ibérica for sending over the review copy that makes this rambling essay possible.

The game boils down to a large deck of cards containing two main types. On one side, trees act as the structural framework; on the other side, flora and fauna cards must be tucked beneath those trees, divided into side-tucking cards (left/right) and top/bottom tucking cards (with each showing two distinct halves). Players gradually build out their personal tableau into groups of up to five cards (one tree plus four tucked cards, one on each edge).

The flora and fauna cards are structured with thematic care. Top/bottom cards feature birds or flying insects on their upper half resting on branches, while their lower half displays mushrooms, insects, small critters, or undergrowth. Side-tucking cards generally feature four-legged European woodland animals—foxes, wolves, deer, bears, bats, and so on.

Mechanically, the game couldn’t be simpler. On each turn, the active player chooses to either play a card from hand or draw two cards. Playing a card requires paying a cost using other cards from your hand. These discarded cards are placed in a shared market area where opponents can pick them up on subsequent turns.

Besides scoring conditions based on the organism pictured, cards can activate immediate bonuses like drawing more cards, playing cards for free, or granting permanent abilities that trigger whenever you take specific actions, like planting a tree or playing a card on a tree’s upper edge.

Players alternate turns until the end of the game is triggered, which happens when three Winter cards—seeded into the bottom third of the draw pile—are revealed, leading into final scoring. That’s all there is to it.

First off, let’s make one thing clear: Forest Shuffle brings zero innovation to the table and inherits many of the classic flaws inherent to the genre, most notably the impact of luck. Certain cards demand playing specific other cards to score points. For example, the hazel dormouse requires a bat on the exact same tree. Both are side cards, meaning you not only need to draw a bat, but it must be played on the opposite side of the dormouse on that same tree. Wild boars score points if you have a squeaker in your forest—if you don’t happen to cross paths with one, well… tough luck.

However, this is an issue we should already be past when discussing tableau builders. From Race for the Galaxy (check out its tocho-review here) to Terraforming Mars (check out its tocho-review here), Wingspan, Ark Nova, or especially Everdell (check out its tocho-review here), all suffer from this same flaw. You simply have to accept that you’ll often need a card you’ll never get to play because it never passes through your hand. If that bothers you in those games, it’s going to bother you in Forest Shuffle too.

Another common shortcoming in these designs is low player interaction. Again, Forest Shuffle is no exception. Sure, some cards feature majority-based conditions like “score X if you have the most trees,” which might urge you to keep an eye on your opponents and try to block them. But generally, interaction is confined to draft exchanges in the central clearing. You’ll want to avoid serving key cards to your opponents on a silver platter when paying costs. If an opponent has built the dormouse mentioned earlier, discarding a card with a bat on the right side will backfire, as they will pounce on it like a falcon the moment they see it.

This means the game doesn’t scale particularly well—another staple characteristic of low-interaction card games. You probably know plenty of players who insist that Race for the Galaxy, Terraforming Mars, Wingspan, Ark Nova, or Earth (check out its tocho-review here) play best strictly at two, simply because higher player counts mostly serve to increase downtime. Forest Shuffle is no different, performing at its best at two or three players.

At this point, you might think we are looking at a mediocre game based on all the drawbacks mentioned. But in this tocho-review, I preferred to clear the negative aspects out of the way early so we can focus on its virtues on the home stretch. Chief among them is its incredible pacing. Forest Shuffle is among the mechanically simplest games of its genre, closely echoing the philosophy of Race for the Galaxy with its dual-purpose cards (used either as active cards or as currency). But instead of an action selection system aimed at driving interaction, it strips things down to absolute basics: draw or play. This imparts a snappy dynamism that few games manage to match—Earth comes close, though its follow mechanism still bogs down the pace a bit.

As expected, Forest Shuffle is heavily combo-driven, and pulling off synergistic plays feels great. Whether through matching icons to trigger powerful bonuses (which keeps you watching the clearing for specific symbols) or via cards granting engine-building triggers when playing specific card types, combos feel deeply satisfying.

Admittedly, that last point could be seen as a flaw, as early-game engine pieces—like mushrooms that let you draw cards whenever a specific card type is played—can dictate an obvious tactical path early on. Playing a mushroom under your first tree lets you draw a lot of extra cards throughout the match, cutting down on turns spent taking basic draw actions that don’t generate points directly.

It’s also very rewarding because every single card contributes to your score. It’s a point salad through and through. Cheap cards yield modest, reliable points, while expensive cards pose challenging scoring conditions that are harder to optimize, but offer huge point ceilings. This keeps you fully engaged thanks to the rapid flow of play.

I also enjoy the timing management required. Certain cards shouldn’t be played as soon as possible, but rather held back until the opportune moment. For example, bear cards allow you to tuck all cards currently in the clearing board under your cave as victory points. Playing a bear when there are only two cards in the market is wasteful, whereas dropping it right before the clearing gets wiped can be a massive swing.

The card deck is generous, and while abilities and scoring criteria can feel somewhat repetitive over time, playing at lower player counts leaves plenty of cards in the box. This creates uneven distributions and welcome uncertainty, as you’re never sure if the exact card you need is even in play. This keeps things fresh and makes you want to bring it back to the table. Ultimately, its biggest asset is how fast it plays—without that swift pacing, it might struggle against heavier competitors.

Finally, the game-end trigger system deserves praise. Not because it’s novel—it’s an old trick seen in classics like Alhambra (check out its tocho-review here) or Ethnos (check out its tocho-review here). But it brings genuine tension to the final rounds, as players sweat over whether the current turn will be their last.

Moving on to production components. The game consists mainly of decent quality cardstock with a smooth finish and reasonable snap. The deck is only shuffled once, but given all the tucking involved, sleeving is recommended. The clearing board uses thick, sturdy cardboard. The rulebook is well-structured, featuring an appendix index explaining every single tree, animal, plant, and insect.

Visually, Toni Llobet delivers fantastic artwork. The box cover is perhaps the weakest link—looking a bit like a collage of random animals slapped over a forest backdrop—but the card illustrations are marvelous. Fully built out, the spread is real eye candy. “Tabletop spread” is key here: this game demands significant table space, reminiscent of Glory to Rome due to how cards fan out across your play area.

And let’s wrap this up. Forest Shuffle is a tableau-building card game that boils core genre tropes down to their simplest form. Cards serve double-duty as resources to pay for other cards, triggering immediate bonuses, ongoing engines, or end-game scoring. Spotting synergies is easy, but piloting your engine smoothly is challenging—especially when key cards remain in the box—resulting in a frantic, engaging pace. As is typical for the genre, luck can be frustrating when you fail to draw specific key cards. It requires a large table space to accommodate tucked cards, which can occasionally feel unwieldy. Interaction is minimal outside of majority comparisons, so it plays best at two players due to minimal downtime and enough breathing room to build out a satisfying tableau. At five players, high downtime combined with a rapidly cycling market means the game ends before anyone can build a substantial engine. For all these reasons, I give it a…