Review: Forest Shuffle – Smoky Mountains

Introduction & Overview

In the Great Smoky Mountains, in the eastern United States, rivers and streams erode the land, carving their way through lush forests and offering a diverse home for animals and plants. Create a forest to your liking: will you focus on achieving a high density of trees, or will you seek out a variety of river landscapes?

This is how Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains is introduced to us, a design by Kosch (FYFE) that operates as a standalone game separate from Forest Shuffle. First published in 2026 by Lookout Games in English and German versions. The illustrations are handled by Toni Llobet and Judit Piella, who were already responsible for the artwork of the first version.

It is published in Spanish by Asmodee (the game is language-dependent with text on some cards, in addition to the rulebook). It supports 2 to 5 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 years and an approximate playing time of 60 minutes. The suggested retail price is €27.99. For this review, a review copy of the Spanish version from Asmodee was used, kindly provided by the publisher itself.

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

• 180 Forest Cards (56×87 mm):
  • 56 Tree Cards
  • 58 Top/Bottom Cards
  • 49 Left/Right Cards
  • 9 Terrain Cards
  • 3 Winter Cards
  • 5 Cave Cards
• Clearing Board
• Scorepad
• Rulebook

How to Play

Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains is a card game set in the Great Smoky Mountains where each player must create their own woodland and river ecosystem, looking for the best synergies between flora and fauna. The game is played over an undetermined number of alternating turns among the players. On each turn, the active player must choose between drawing two cards (taking them one by one from the central draw deck or the clearing) or playing a card from their hand into their forest by paying its cost in cards discarded to the clearing. Cards can be trees, rivers, or split cards featuring animals and plants (arranged horizontally or vertically). When playing a tree, a card from the deck is added to the clearing and, optionally, another card can be tucked face-down underneath to turn it into an adjacent river. Animals and plants must be placed by tucking their unchosen half into the available slots of trees or rivers, respecting whether or not the species requires an aquatic habitat. Playing a card triggers its immediate or ongoing effects, as well as potential bonuses if the cost was paid with cards of the same tree type, while also allowing players to send cards to their personal cave. If ten or more cards accumulate in the clearing at the end of a turn, it is completely emptied. The game ends immediately the instant the third winter card hidden in the bottom third of the deck is revealed, proceeding to tally the points provided by the forest species and the cards sheltered in the cave, with the player having the highest score declared the winner.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Tree Cards. These serve as the foundation for the rest of the cards. Up to four additional cards can be played onto each tree (on trees or shrubs, each one is tucked under one of the sides of the tree/shrub card). Alternatively, in this version, it is possible to play any card from your hand face-down as a river at the bottom of the tree. This setup allows you to play cards that require being played on rivers. Said cards display an effect in their bottom banner that applies either when played or during final scoring. They will serve to explain the anatomy of the cards, as the top-left corner shows the card’s cost, the top-right corner shows the symbol associated with the card, and the bottom banner displays the effect. The cost of the card is paid with other cards from your hand, giving them dual-use functionality. Some effects trigger only if all the cards discarded to pay the cost display the symbol corresponding to the effect. It should be noted that any card can be played face-down as a tree, although it will not provide any points.

Next, we have the Terrains, which in this version act as river cards allowing you to play two cards that require a river on the bottom and another two cards on the top. There is also the option to play certain river cards individually, which would allow playing up to four cards that require a river along the bottom.

On the other hand, we have the Top/Bottom and Left/Right Cards. These represent forest flora and fauna and feature the same anatomy as tree cards, except each card has two halves (top and bottom or left and right), such that each half acts as its own card (with its cost, symbol, and effects). To play one of these cards, in addition to discarding the corresponding number of cards, you will need a tree, shrub, or terrain with the appropriate free side to tuck the card under it. Some cards feature set collection scoring for different cards, allowing multiple sets to score if a player has duplicate cards.

All cards form a single deck into which three Winter Cards are shuffled at the start of the game (specifically in the bottom third of the deck). Whenever a player draws a card and encounters one of these winter cards, they simply set it aside and draw another one. Once the third winter card is revealed, the end of the game is triggered.

Each player will have a Cave Card under which cards are tucked that will count as victory points through the effects of certain cards. Unlike Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor, these caves do not have any special effects.

Finally, we must mention the Clearing Board, which serves as a general supply where the cards used to pay the cost of played cards are laid out, allowing players to draw them on subsequent turns. When, at the end of a player’s turn, there are 10 or more cards in the supply, all cards on the board are discarded. The board also indicates, in the bottom-left corner, that every time a tree is played, a card must be revealed from the deck and placed in the clearing.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

• Place the clearing board in the center of the table, within reach of all players.
• Set aside the 3 winter cards and the cave cards.
• Shuffle the remaining cards and, depending on the player count, secretly return a specific number of cards to the box:
  • With 2 players: 45 cards.
  • With 3 players: 30 cards.
  • With 4 players: 15 cards.
  • With 5 players: no cards are removed.
• Divide the remaining deck into three face-down piles of roughly equal size.
• Shuffle two winter cards into one of the piles and place the third winter card on top of that same pile.
• Stack the other two piles on top of the one containing the winter cards to form a single draw deck, which is placed next to the clearing.
• Each player receives a cave card, placing it face-up in front of them, and draws 6 cards from the draw deck to form their starting hand.
• Randomly choose the starting player (the rulebook suggests whoever most recently took a walk in a forest).

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains is played over an undetermined number of alternating turns among the players, proceeding in clockwise order, starting with the first player.

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

• Draw Two Cards. The player draws two cards into their hand, taking them one at a time. For each of the two cards, they may freely choose between drawing a face-down card from the top of the draw deck or taking a face-up card from the clearing.
  • Hand limit. The maximum hand limit is 10 cards. If a player has 9 cards, they may only draw one. If they already have 10 cards in hand, they cannot choose this action.
  • Winter Cards. If the first or second Winter Card appears when drawing from the deck, it is placed face-up next to the Clearing and the player immediately draws a replacement card from the deck. If the third Winter Card is revealed, the game ends immediately.
• Play a Card and Check the Clearing. The player puts a card from their hand into play in their personal forest, resolves its effects, and finally checks the state of the Clearing. To play a card, proceed as follows:
  • Pay the cost. The player must discard as many cards from their hand as indicated by the cost printed on the card (or on the chosen half if it is a split card), placing them face-up in the Clearing. As a general rule, you can pay with any card, unless you are aiming to trigger a specific bonus.
  • Place the card in the forest. Depending on the type of card played:
    • Trees. Placed face-up in the player’s area. Optionally, when playing a tree, the player may add an extra card from their hand face-down underneath it to act as a universal river (it cannot be added later). After playing a tree (with or without a river), the top card of the deck must be revealed and placed face-up in the Clearing. A tree without a river offers four slots for split cards (top, bottom, left, and right). A tree with a river offers five slots: top, left, right, and two bottom slots.
    • Terrains (Rivers). Played horizontally on their own. They offer four slots: two on top and two on the bottom (they do not accept cards on the sides).
    • Animals and Plants (Split cards). They are divided horizontally or vertically. The player chooses one of the two halves and tucks the unused half underneath a tree or river that has the corresponding slot free. Only the visible half will count as part of the forest for all intents and purposes. Additionally, water requirements must be respected:
      • Trees without a river only accept cards without a water requirement.
      • Standalone rivers only accept cards with a water requirement.
      • Trees with a river accept cards with or without a water requirement in their top, left, and right slots; however, in the two bottom slots under the river, they only accept cards with a water requirement.
  • Resolve Effect and Bonus. After paying for and placing the card (and adding the card to the Clearing if it was a tree), resolve in order:
    • Effect. It can be immediate (one-time use at that moment, such as adding cards to the cave) or ongoing (triggers from that moment onward whenever the indicated condition is met).
    • Bonus. Certain cards display a colored arrow. To obtain this bonus, all cards used to pay the cost must match the played card in color and tree symbol.
  • Check the Clearing. At the end of the turn, if there are 10 or more cards in the Clearing, all cards present in it are discarded and returned to the game box.
• In the exceptional case that a player cannot perform either of the two main actions, they must reveal their hand, place up to 2 cards from their hand into their cave, and draw that same number of cards from the deck to end their turn.

After this, the turn passes to the next player in clockwise order, unless an effect grants an extra consecutive turn.

Game End

The game ends immediately the moment the third winter card is revealed, interrupting the current turn if it has not yet concluded. When calculating a player’s score, the following are taken into account:

1. Trees and Rivers: the victory points indicated on the tree and river cards visible in the player’s forest according to their specific requirements and conditions.
2. Animals and Plants: the victory points indicated on the split cards that have been played on trees and rivers (counting only the visible half of the card).
3. Cave: 1 victory point for each card the player has stored in their cave.

The player with the most victory points is declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the tied players share the victory.

Personal Opinion

In 2023, the German publisher Lookout, now under the umbrella of the almighty Asmodee, released a game that didn’t seem to have huge ambitions, riding the wave of designs themed around developing a natural landscape. And, to the surprise of many, they hit the nail on the head with Forest Shuffle (here is its tocho-review).

Kosch, who until then had only seen FYFE (here is its tocho-review) published, charmed countless players with a card game featuring the ever-effective system of using cards in a dual-use manner à la Race for the Galaxy (here is its tocho-review)—that is, as an effect and as currency. Thus, to play a card, others must be discarded, making the hand management mechanic truly shine.

However, instead of piling mechanical layers onto the whole package, he limited himself to generating an endurance-race dynamic through which players had to try to assemble the best possible set collection, keeping in mind that the draw deck acts as a timer with an uncertain end, since in the bottom third of the deck sit three cards that, once the last one is revealed, bring the game to an immediate close—something we have already seen in games like Alhambra (here is its tocho-review) or Ethnos (here is its tocho-review).

The appeal of the game lay precisely in trying to build the best collection of cards under this mounting pressure. At the start of the game, you play relatively relaxed, hunting for certain cards and committing to specific sets that combo well together.

Yet, as the draw deck dwindles, the tension rises by the second, since once the first winter card is revealed, players enter panic mode because the game could end at any moment (I have seen games where two winter cards were revealed back-to-back), even generating a push-your-luck dynamic as players try to draw cards or play whatever is in their hand even when it isn’t the most optimal move.

Then came several expansions that, on the one hand, diluted the deck (at two players, just over half of all the cards are left out of the game). The first was Alpine (here is its tocho-review), which introduced two new types of trees and balanced out certain strategies. Next came Woodland Edge (here is its tocho-review), which did represent a step forward thanks to introducing shrubs, providing ongoing effects that gave rise to very interesting strategies. Finally, Exploration (here is its tocho-review) was essentially a collection of all the promo cards published up to that point alongside a solo mode and asymmetric caves.

In 2025, we received a new standalone installment with Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor (here is its tocho-review), set in the British moorlands, along with a first expansion, Exmoor (here is its tocho-review), whose main virtue was compiling all the concepts from the base game and expansions while adding the terrain concept, shifting the focus onto top and bottom cards and reducing the weight of trees.

Now we get Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains, a third standalone installment set in the American woods that, just like its predecessor, is incompatible with anything previously published. It is a decision that no longer surprises after the precedent set by Dartmoor, yet it forces us to ask: does it bring enough to the table to justify its existence, or is this just a simple reskin to keep milking the cash cow? Let’s find out, though not before thanking Asmodee for the review copy that makes this wall of text possible.

Before continuing, although Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains is not an expansion, I am going to treat it as one in this section, since the core turn structure and emerging dynamics remain the same. Therefore, I invite you to check out the tocho-reviews of the aforementioned products for context that I will take as already known.

So the first question is: does Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains have any fundamental differences from previous titles? Well, truly fundamental, not really. However, it does introduce a very interesting twist on the terrain foundation we already saw in Dartmoor: river management. Here, terrains become river stretches (nine specific cards in the deck) that are played horizontally and accept up to two cards on top and two on the bottom.

Even more notably, the back of every card displays a universal river. This allows us, when playing a tree, to pay an extra card face-down to create a tree with a river, thus opening up an array of up to four possible configurations in our play area: the river terrain on its own (accepting two cards on top and two on the bottom), the tree without a river (with its usual four slots), the tree with a river (expanding to five slots: one on top, one on each side, and two underneath the water), or even playing a standalone universal river via specific effects that accepts four cards underneath.

Furthermore, this land-water duality dictates where each species can go. Many cards now feature a water requirement alongside their cost. Standalone rivers only accommodate aquatic creatures, trees without rivers only house terrestrial species, whereas trees with rivers blend both worlds, accepting land cards on top and on the sides while reserving the two bottom slots exclusively for species with a water requirement.

What this system causes in terms of pacing is a considerable acceleration of the game. By being able to use any card from your hand face-down as a river when planting a tree, cards burn through the deck at breakneck speed, and it becomes much easier to open up slots for aquatic creatures without relying solely on drawing one of the scarce river terrains from the deck. I really like this concept because it forces you to develop a much more versatile tableau from the very opening turns.

On the flip side, and this is a step backward compared to Dartmoor, shrubs and asymmetric caves have been removed here. We go back to the five standard basic caves and lose those juicy ongoing effects from shrubs as well as the starting replayability provided by special caves (even though terrains and certain specific cards are present). This pruning of elements makes it feel, mechanically speaking, slightly less well-rounded and complete than the British installment.

On another note, I would like to speak up in defense of the design’s balance against a fairly widespread criticism accusing this installment of having “broken” cards for including several species (such as the bald eagle, the black bear, or the coyote) that award thirty points if you meet certain conditions. If you stop to analyze the scoring potential of equivalent cards in the original Forest Shuffle or in Dartmoor, you will see that the point ceilings are practically identical; it is simply that here the jackpot is written out more directly instead of relying on progressive multipliers.

Alright, you now have a rough overview of what Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains brings to the table. Let’s move on to the questions I assume are on your mind. The first and most fundamental one: as an entry point or stacked up against its siblings, where does it stand? Compared to the basic first Forest Shuffle, the river system gives it a vastly superior layer of versatility, so I would give the edge to Smoky Mountains. However, against Dartmoor, I feel the absence of shrubs and asymmetric caves weighs it down, leaving Dartmoor as the more complete design in my eyes.

The second comparison would be between Forest Shuffle with all its expansions and this Smoky Mountains. Here we find ourselves in the exact same predicament: in the expanded original game, deck dilution rewards pure tactical play and constant adaptation in the face of uncertainty, not knowing which combos will show up. In Smoky Mountains, featuring a tight 180-card deck where only a few are removed depending on player count, all the main synergies for trees, squirrels, or river creatures are guaranteed to appear in the game, offering greater strategic control over your tableau.

So in this case, awarding the point once again depends on your player profile. If you enjoy tactical improvisation and the controlled chaos of a massive deck, go for the original with expansions. If you prefer a tighter environment where the spatial puzzle of combining trees and rivers takes center stage, Smoky Mountains delivers in spades.

If I don’t own any of them, which one should I start with? To this day, I still think Dartmoor is the most well-rounded choice as a single game, but if river management and a brisker pace particularly appeal to you, this Smoky Mountains is a terrific gateway. What about owning several? For those of us who keep a game from the franchise in our regular weekly rotation, this third entry is a magnificent addition that brings a breath of fresh air without betraying the essence of the series.

Let’s move on to production quality. The usual standards of the line are maintained: cards with a somewhat thin cardstock, smooth finish, and decent snap. Although the deck is only shuffled once per game, sleeving is still highly recommended to prevent wear and tear and make sliding cards easier when tucking them (especially now that we will constantly be slipping face-down cards under trees). The clearing board retains that sturdy, thick cardboard with dividers to track the ten-card limit, and the rulebook is impeccably structured. Moreover, unlike Dartmoor, Lookout Games released the companion mobile app almost simultaneously (essential for scoring).

Visually, we continue to enjoy the talent of Toni Llobet and Judit Piella, though here I do want to pause and applaud the aesthetic leap. Whereas the more muted tones of the moorlands in Dartmoor left me somewhat cold, Smoky Mountains is, by far, the prettiest game in the entire franchise. The autumnal color palette, the warm hues of the North American forests, and the contrast with the deep blue of the rivers make the table presence a true visual marvel, even if it’s true that some animals have slightly awkward poses (that otter looks like a wax figure from the Madrid Wax Museum).

And let’s wrap this up. Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains is a very solid offering that combines dual-use card hand management with deeply engaging set collection. The main novelty of this third installment is river management, allowing players to use both specific terrains and the backs of cards themselves to open up waterways. This duality between terrestrial and aquatic species accelerates the game’s pace and forces players to build a versatile tableau right from the opening turns, providing welcome strategic control over deck synergies. In terms of feel, it preserves that signature tension where an initially measured endurance race eventually turns into an almost push-your-luck frenzy as the deck dwindles and the uncertain ending looms. On the downside, the removal of shrubs with ongoing effects and asymmetric caves makes the package feel a notch less complete compared to the expanded base game or the second installment. All in all, its briskness, solid balance, and the fresh air brought by its tree-and-river puzzle make it a highly recommendable title. For all these reasons, I give it a…