Review: Faraway

Introduction & Overview

Beyond the Sea of Mists lies Alula, a mysterious continent. Journey across its ever-changing world and uncover the wonders it conceals. Meet its inhabitants, unravel its secrets, and gain more renown than your opponents. Explore the continent, take on quests, and gather the resources needed to fulfill them. Plan your journey carefully because, at the end of the game, you will score your points in reverse order—starting with the very last card you played!

This is how Faraway is presented—a design by Johannes Goupy (Queenz, Orichalcum) and Corentin Lebrat (Draftosaurus, Arkeis). First published in 2023 by Catch Up Games in a French edition, with artwork by Maxime Morin (Garden Nation, Codex Naturalis).

It is published in Spanish by Maldito Games (the game is completely language-independent, save for the rulebook). It accommodates 2 to 6 players, with a recommended minimum age of 10, and an approximate playing time of 25 minutes. The MSRP is €20. For this review, a copy of the French edition by Catch Up Games was used.

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.

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom) measuring 18×13×4 cm (standard small box size like Fungi / Morels), we find the following items:

68 Region Cards (70×70 mm)
45 Sanctuary Cards (44×68 mm)
Scorepad (paper)
Rulebook

How to Play

Faraway is a filler game where each player completes a journey across eight regions. Players start the game with three region cards in hand, numbered 1 to 68, featuring potential scoring conditions, scoring prerequisites, and various icons. The game plays over eight turns, during each of which players make a simultaneous blind selection by playing a card from hand to their play area. In ascending order of card values (lowest to highest), players draft one card from the market to replenish their hand. Additionally, if the played card has a higher value than the previous card in their row, the player draws sanctuary cards—the amount determined by their map icons plus one—keeps one, and discards the rest. The twist is that, at the end of the game, cards are scored in reverse order: the eighth card only considers itself, the seventh considers itself and the eighth, and so on (along with sanctuary cards, which remain active throughout the entire scoring phase).

Key Concepts

Let’s begin with the Region Cards. In their upper-left corner, they show an exploration duration number enclosed in a circle indicating whether exploration occurs during day or night. To the right of this value, a map icon may appear, which lets you draw more sanctuary cards. The upper-right corner may feature various mineral symbols. The bottom banner shows a scoring condition, which may have a prerequisite displayed above it in the form of a set of mineral icons. Finally, each card belongs to one of four colors with an associated motif (yellow, green, blue, and red).

On the other hand, we have the Sanctuary Cards. These are earned by playing region cards with a value higher than the previously played card. Sanctuary cards can provide minerals and/or map icons, as well as scoring conditions and, occasionally, one of the four colors (though most are gray).

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

Shuffle the deck of region cards and place it in the center of the table.
Reveal a number of region cards equal to the number of players plus one.
Shuffle the sanctuary deck and set it aside.
Each player draws 3 region cards to form their starting hand.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Faraway is played over eight rounds. Each round is divided into three phases.

Phase I: Explore a Region

In this phase, all players simultaneously and secretly choose one card from their hand and place it face down in their play area.

Once everyone has chosen, all players reveal their card and place it to the right of their exploration row.

Phase II: Find Sanctuaries

Any player whose played card has a higher exploration value than their previously played card draws sanctuary cards from the deck equal to the number of map icons visible across their cards plus one.

If the played region card has a value equal to or lower than the previous card, no sanctuary cards are drawn.

Phase III: End of the Exploration

Now, players take turns drafting cards from the market to refill their hands, starting with the player who played the lowest-value region card and continuing in ascending order.

After drafting, players who drew sanctuary cards choose one to keep and place the rest face down on the bottom of the sanctuary deck.

Finally, unless it is the eighth round, the remaining unpicked region card is discarded, and a new set of region cards equal to the player count plus one is dealt face up.

A new round then begins.

Game End

The game ends after the eighth round. Players then proceed to calculate their final score. To do this, everyone flips their eight region cards face down while preserving their order.

Cards are then revealed one by one from right to left (from 8th to 1st), scoring each card as it is revealed. If the card has a prerequisite requirement, it must be met by the region cards revealed up to that point plus any sanctuary cards. If fulfilled, the points are scored according to its criteria; otherwise, it scores zero.

Sanctuary cards with scoring criteria are also evaluated.

The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the player whose region cards have the lowest total exploration value is declared the winner.

Personal Opinion

I have often mentioned that fillers are the hardest category to get right when it comes to hitting that sweet spot and finding a design that garners broad consensus within the community. That is because these games leave little room for error or bloated experimentation; they need to be sleek designs that, at the same time, keep your brain ticking long after each session ends.

That is why, whenever one of these designs emerges, we must celebrate it, as it quickly becomes a staple on game tables from the moment it hits the market, staying in the spotlight for a long time and seeing constant reprints to keep up with demand. That has happened and will continue to happen with Faraway. Let’s see why.

In Faraway, we take on the role of explorers embarking on an incredible journey across scenic regions in search of hidden sanctuaries. The first two pages of the rulebook are dedicated to establishing the game’s lore, introducing the continent in which it is set, including its inhabitants, seasons, biomes, minerals, fauna, and flora. It is great for those who love setting the mood thematically, but perhaps a bit over-the-top, since—like any true filler—the theme quickly takes a back seat, and you will barely pay attention to it.

Mechanically, we are dealing with simultaneous card selection with numbered cards in the purest 6 nimmt! (tocho-review here) or Land Unter / Turn the Tide (tocho-review here) fashion. We have a shared deck of uniquely numbered cards. Each player starts with a three-card hand, and in each of the eight turns that make up a game, everyone chooses one card and reveals it simultaneously. It sounds straightforward, but the ramifications are massive.

Normally, I would spend a few more paragraphs discussing different facets of the design before getting to the central twist that makes Faraway special. But here, we need to address it right away because it drives the entire experience from turn one: its scoring mechanism.

Players form a row with the cards they pick each turn. Each of these cards typically features a scoring condition. These conditions usually demand certain prerequisites to trigger. The catch is that to fulfill these prerequisites, only cards played *after* that card will count.

This might not sound like a huge deal at first glance, but once you tie it to the design’s other key element—the sanctuaries—the landscape shifts completely. Alongside the eight region cards laid out in front of you, players can also earn sanctuary cards. In essence, these act as extra cards that provide scoring criteria and/or resource icons to help meet the requirements of your region cards, with the unique advantage that sanctuary cards apply retroactively to every single region card, regardless of when they were acquired.

To gain these sanctuary cards, you must meet a simple condition on any given turn: play a region card with a higher value than the previous one. Once again, this might seem like a straightforward decision, but the dilemma becomes apparent once you realize that the scoring potential of region cards scales directly with their numerical value.

High-value cards offer substantial point payouts, but they also feature demanding activation prerequisites. This naturally pushes you toward playing them early in your row, giving you enough runway across subsequent turns to draft the region and sanctuary cards required to unlock those points.

However, the trade-off is that gaining sanctuary cards becomes progressively harder, as maintaining an unbroken ascending sequence is virtually impossible. At some point, you will have to play a low card to “reset” the curve and regain flexibility for future turns.

When you factor in that the cards played each round also determine turn order for drafting from the central market to replenish your hand, the puzzle comes together seamlessly.

Consequently, Faraway is one of those games that, in just eight short turns and eight card plays, keeps you completely hooked, constantly calculating which of your three cards in hand is the optimal play. Naturally, your default instinct is to chase sanctuary cards—securing seven of them is usually the mark of a stellar game. But doing so is pointless if you achieve it by playing region cards whose scoring criteria you fail to trigger.

You will frequently find yourself forced to sacrifice a turn by playing a low-value card that offers no useful icons for earlier cards—or one that you cannot even score given the turns remaining—solely to draft ahead of your opponents and snag that crucial card from the market that unlocks a high-scoring card already in your row.

Naturally, luck plays a significant role here, as it does in most card-driven fillers. You might take a gamble by opening with a high-value card on turn one, only to find that, no matter how many sanctuaries you pick or how well you play subsequent rounds, the required icons simply never appear. Yet that tension is precisely what makes the game shine; it delivers a thrilling arc that often culminates in a nail-biting final turn where you might just pull the exact sanctuary card you needed.

To me, Faraway elevates the design framework seen in games like Fantasy Realms (tocho-review here)—a hand of cards (here, a tableau row on the table) that must synergize to maximize points—by providing a much stronger sense of control. Even if that control is sometimes an illusion, as the luck of the draw carries real weight and the smartest player will not always win, the core loop is so engaging that you will immediately want to shuffle up and play again.

Another of Faraway‘s greatest strengths is how brilliantly it scales, since direct player interaction is confined to the drafting phase at the end of each round. It is true that at higher player counts, card selection carries a bit more weight due to turn-order jockeying and a wider market display (increasing the odds of finding the perfect fit). However, the two-player experience does not suffer, even if luck feels slightly more pronounced. Across every player count, it leaves you eager for another round.

Turning to production quality, the box includes two small decks of cards with decent core weight, a smooth (if slightly textured) finish, and fairly standard snap, making card sleeves almost essential to facilitate shuffling. The rulebook is clearly written and leaves no room for ambiguity.

As for the visual presentation, it is bound to polarize. The artwork in Faraway evokes mixed feelings: on one hand, the graphic design and vibrant color palette create an appealing table presence. On the other hand, the character illustrations lean heavily into a tribal aesthetic, depicting figures in masks reminiscent of African or pre-Columbian ceremonial gear, which may feel a bit unusual to some. The most fitting description for the art is certainly peculiar.

And let’s wrap this up. Faraway is one of those games that grabs you from your very first play through its progressive learning curve, where that initial game is all about wrapping your head around the flow, even if mastering it takes many more sessions. It is wonderfully snappy thanks to its simultaneous selection mechanic, packing a surprising amount of tension into just eight turns as you try to harmonize every piece of the puzzle with deceptively simple decisions. While luck plays a noticeable part—as in almost any card filler—it is easy to embrace given the brisk playtime (if things go south, just run it back). On top of that, it scales exceptionally well, and even its artwork stands out as truly distinct. For all these reasons, I give it a…