Review: Wondrous Creatures – Winterfall

Introduction & Overview

Several years ago, a mysterious island named Starbeak was discovered. After explorers began visiting it regularly, the island enjoyed years of calm, sunny weather. Aside from its perpetually snow-capped highlands, most regions of Starbeak enjoyed clear skies and warm sunshine, leading many to believe that it possessed its own unique, mild climate. However, five years after the first expedition landed on Starbeak, a sudden blizzard struck the island. At first dismissed as a passing anomaly, as the cold lingered for months, people began to uncover the truth: Starbeak follows a peculiar weather cycle, alternating between mild years and harsh winter years. With the arrival of this prolonged winter, strange and wondrous phenomena began to emerge all across the island. A new species of creatures known as Spirits appeared, visible only during the winter. The ever-shifting climate drastically transformed the island’s terrain and ecosystem, turning exploration into an increasingly unpredictable and challenging endeavor.

This is the premise behind Winterfall, the first expansion for Wondrous Creatures, designed by Jaewoo Bang (Atlanteum), Gunho Kim (Wild: Serengeti), and Yeom Cheolwoong (Shallow Sea). First published in 2026 by Bad Comet in an English edition. Artwork is provided by Sophia Kang (Life of the Amazonia, Wild: Serengeti).

It will be published in Spanish by Samaruc Games (the game is language-dependent across many cards in addition to the rulebook). The original parameters remain unchanged: 1 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 14 and an approximate playing time of 50 to 90 minutes per player. The MSRP is €45.95. A review copy of Bad Comet’s English edition was used for this review.

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 29.7×23.7×7 cm (the same size as the base game box), we find the following components:

• Supply Board (cardboard)
• Project Board (cardboard)
• 6 Captain Boards (cardstock)
• 4 Progress Tiles (2 for 1-2 players and 2 for 3-4 players) (cardboard)
• 2 Habitat Tiles (cardboard)
• 6 Wild Habitat Tiles (cardboard)
• 8 Mountain Tiles (6 unmarked and 2 marked) (cardboard)
• 18 Aurora Tiles (cardboard)
• 8 Species Tokens (wooden)
• 14 Aurora Tokens (cardboard)
• 11 Spirit Eggs (cardboard)
• 11 Spirit Eggs (wooden)
• 18 Blizzards (wooden)
• 25 Snowflakes (wooden)
• 6 Large Snowflakes (wooden)
• 6 Captains (magnetic wooden meeples)
• 18 Large Cards (120×70 mm):
  • 6 Prelude Cards
  • 12 Event Cards
• 77 Standard Cards (63×88 mm):
  • 53 Creature Cards
  • 11 Achievement Cards (7 Main, 2 Single-Species, and 2 Multi-Species)
  • 12 Solo Mode Cards
• Solo Mode Player Aid
• 2 Component Trays (plastic)
• Card Tray (plastic)
• Rulebook

How to Play

Winterfall is an expansion for Wondrous Creatures that introduces a new progress track activating weather events (Blizzards and Auroras) capable of dynamically altering the map, adding Aurora tiles with token-limited actions, wild habitats, mountain tiles, and blizzards that block resource collection from habitats. Additionally, an eighth species of creature—the Spirits—is introduced, along with an end-game Project system where players compete for majorities based on species icons or accumulated snowflakes, as well as a fresh assortment of captains, creature cards, and achievements. If you are not familiar with the base game, I recommend checking out the corresponding tocho-review, as many concepts explained there will be referenced here.

Key Concepts

Let us start with the New Supply Board, an elongated auxiliary board placed above the main board. It houses the draw deck and the six-card Creature Card market forming the display, as well as the upper slots for Snowfields above each card. It also provides designated spaces for the Event Card deck and its discard pile, the Aurora Tile stack and its discard pile, acting as the central hub to organize the expansion’s cards and components during the game.

The Project Board is a double-sided rectangular board tailored to player count, positioned beneath the main board. It features three separate Project slots evaluated sequentially at the end of the game, awarding victory points through a majority-based ranking. The first two projects show a slot to place a species token and score icons of that species (including hatched eggs), whereas the third project permanently scores the total accumulated snowflakes. The New Achievement Cards and Species Tokens expand the game’s scoring goals. New Main Achievement Cards feature requirements tailored to the expansion (such as accumulating large reserves of cards, habitat sets, or species), while the single-species and multi-species achievement cards feature blank spaces where circular Species Tokens are placed at random during setup to establish which species award trophies in that game, with these tokens also being utilized on the Project Board.

The Progress Track Tiles are cardboard strips designed to cover the progress track printed on the main board, tailored to the player count. Each time a player performs a rest action, the time marker advances along this new path, which, in addition to the usual milestones for restocking eggs, features specific spaces that immediately trigger map-altering Events.

Wild Habitat Tiles are hexagonal habitat tiles added to the map during initial setup via prelude cards. They function like any other habitat, but with the distinct advantage of total flexibility: when a player places a crew member adjacent to a wild habitat, they may choose between taking any single resource (fruit, coral, flower, or mushroom) or drawing any Creature Card available in the market.

Aurora Tiles and Aurora Tokens represent magical polar phenomena placed on the map covering habitat spaces (except the butterfly net space) during aurora events or through card effects. Each hexagonal tile displays a powerful special ability and one or two slots where Aurora Tokens are placed upon entering play. Whenever a player places a crew member adjacent to an aurora, they must remove an aurora token to activate its benefit; the moment the last token is removed, the aurora tile is discarded from the map, uncovering the original habitat beneath.

Blizzards are wooden tokens representing snowstorms placed on habitat spaces across the map. A blizzard blocks regular resource collection on that hex, meaning that when a player places a crew member adjacent to a space with a blizzard, they must remove the blizzard token and return it to the supply, being forced to take a Creature Card from the market matching that habitat instead of gathering the resource.

Snowflakes are tokens that accumulate in the Snowfields situated above the cards in the market through card effects and abilities. Whenever a player claims a Creature Card from the display, they also collect all snowflakes resting on its slot and move them to their personal reserve. At the end of the game, accumulated snowflakes determine standings and points awarded on the corresponding project of the Project Board.

The New Captains introduce new captain boards along with their corresponding magnetic meeples. As in the base game, their special ability unlocks after completing at least one achievement and activates when deploying the captain to the map, providing asymmetric effects related to storing eggs, claimed trophies, placing snowflakes, or managing energy tokens to search the deck for cards.

Prelude Cards are setup cards from which one is drawn at random at the start of the game. Their sole purpose is to dictate the initial winter configuration on the board, indicating which specific Snowfields in the market receive the opening snowflakes and which habitat spaces on the map are replaced by Wild Habitat Tiles before play begins.

Event Cards form a dedicated deck triggered whenever the time marker reaches an Event space. Each card displays a symbol in its top-left corner (which must not match the visible discard) alongside instructions divided into one-time direct effects and sequential effects resolved by all players in clockwise order, spawning snowflakes, placing mountain tiles, bringing forth auroras, or unleashing blizzards across the map.

New Creature Cards are shuffled directly into the base game creature deck, marked with an expansion icon. They introduce the game’s eighth species, Spirits, alongside novel mechanical interactions such as manipulating snowflakes and blizzards, copying opponents’ rest or energy cards, and the new keyword “Discover” (which allows players to reveal cards from the deck until finding one that meets a specific criterion of card type, habitat, or species).

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

The following setup steps are added:

Before beginning, return the following unused base game components to the box: the supply board, the 2 progress track tiles for 4 players, the 16 main achievement cards (except cards 01, 02, and 03), and the 12 Tingent solo mode cards. Then, add the spirit eggs to the egg pool.

• Place the project board face up for the appropriate player count beneath the main board.
• Place the supply board above the main board.
• Shuffle all expansion creature cards into the base game creature deck and place it face down as the draw deck.
• Shuffle the event card deck and place it face down in its designated slot.
• Shuffle all aurora tiles and form a face-down stack.
• Place the 2 progress track tiles matching the player count over the base game’s printed track on the main board.
• Shuffle the 2 expansion habitat tiles into the base game habitat tiles to form a face-down draw pile.
• Shuffle the 7 expansion main achievement cards with the 3 base game main achievement cards.
• Place the 2 expansion single-species achievement cards on the turquoise spaces using the side corresponding to player count.
• Place the 2 expansion multi-species achievement cards on the yellow spaces using the side corresponding to player count.
• Shuffle the 8 species tokens and place 1 at random on each of the 2 single-species achievement cards, 2 on each of the 2 multi-species achievement cards, and 1 on each of the first two projects on the project board.
• Shuffle the prelude cards, draw 1 at random, place 1 snowflake on each snowfield indicated by the card, and shuffle the wild habitat tiles to draw 2 at random and place them on the map habitats specified by the prelude.
• Discard the prelude card face up into the discard pile and return any remaining wild habitat tiles to the box.

Game Flow

During the course of the game, the following additional rules apply to standard gameplay mechanics:

• Crew Placement and Map Effects. When placing a crew member on the map, the following extra considerations apply:
  • Wild Habitats. Treated as a standard habitat type. When placing a crew member adjacent to a Wild Habitat, the player may choose between gaining 1 resource of any type (Fruit, Coral, Flower, or Mushroom) or drawing 1 Creature Card of any type. They also display a special effect icon that can be triggered in the usual manner.
  • Mountain Hexes. If mountain tiles have been placed on plain spaces via event effects, they function exactly like standard mountains (placing a crew member adjacent to them requires paying 1 resource of any type). If a mountain tile is placed on a hex already occupied by a meeple or an egg, the tile is simply slipped underneath with no additional cost or interaction.
  • Blizzards. Blizzard tokens temporarily lock down habitats. While a habitat contains a blizzard, players cannot collect resources from it. When placing a crew member adjacent to one or more habitats with blizzards, those blizzard tokens must be removed and returned to the supply; for each blizzard removed, the player takes a Creature Card matching the freed habitat type (if it is a Wild Habitat, they may take any card from the market). If there are no matching cards in the market, the blizzard is still cleared, but no card or resource is gained. The habitat’s special effect icon may still be used normally even if a blizzard is present, though doing so does not remove the blizzard token.
  • Aurora Tiles. When placing a crew member adjacent to an aurora tile, the player must activate its ability by removing 1 aurora token from the tile and returning it to the supply. When the last token is removed, the aurora tile is immediately discarded to the aurora discard pile; the habitat revealed underneath does not grant resources or cards to the placed crew member, though a net may still be used to activate its special effect. Each crew member may activate only 1 aurora tile even if adjacent to multiple (the player chooses which). If a player cannot benefit from the aurora effect at all, it does not trigger and loses no token (however, even a partial benefit triggers it and expends the token). Aurora tiles are not considered habitats and cannot be activated via nets.
• Accumulating Snowflakes on the Supply Board. Above each card space lies a Snowfield slot:
  • Various effects will place snowflake tokens into these slots associated with the cards.
  • Whenever a player draws or takes a Creature Card (by any means or action), they also claim all snowflakes resting on the slot above that card and add them to their personal reserve.
  • Snowflakes remain on their slots even when cards are replaced or cleared, accumulating continuously until a player claims the associated card.
• Discover. When a card or ability instructs you to “Discover” under a given condition (card type, species icon, or habitat), reveal cards one by one from the top of the creature deck until you find the first one that matches the exact criterion. Add that card directly to your hand and place all other revealed cards face up into the discard pile. These cards are not considered drawn or discarded for the purpose of triggering other creature abilities.
• Rest Action and New Progress Track Events. When executing a rest action, advancing the time marker follows the new progress track, which can trigger two new types of events during the advance step:
  • Blizzard Event. The active player draws the top card from the event deck. Compare its top-left symbol to the top card of the discard pile. If they match, discard it and continue revealing cards until finding one with a different symbol. Afterwards, resolve the card’s effects from top to bottom (sequential effects start with the active resting player and proceed clockwise).
  • Aurora Event. Starting with the active player and proceeding clockwise, each player draws 2 aurora tiles from the stack, chooses 1 to place on the map, and discards the other face up. The chosen tile may cover any habitat on the map except the butterfly net space (unless explicitly stated otherwise) and cannot be placed over habitats that already hold an aurora tile. If the chosen habitat had a blizzard, remove it from the game without compensation. Upon placing the tile, the player immediately receives 1 resource of the covered habitat’s type (no cards may be taken) and fills the tile with as many aurora tokens as it has slots.
  • During the resolution of a Blizzard or Aurora Event, the game remains within the turn of the player who triggered the rest action, making them the only player allowed to use energies whose free actions are restricted to their own turn.

Game End

The game ends under the same conditions as the base game. However, prior to standard final scoring, Projects must first be evaluated from left to right. When calculating additional or altered scores from this expansion, consider the following:

• Species Projects. Evaluate the two projects displaying a species icon. Players rank according to the total number of that icon present across their played cards and all their Eggs (both hatched and unhatched). Higher ranks award more points based on position. In the event of a tie, all tied players receive the points for the next lower position, bumping subsequent players down. Having 0 required icons results in 0 points.
• Snowflake Project. Evaluate the third project based on the total number of Snowflakes accumulated on each player’s board. Victory points are awarded according to rank, applying the same tiebreaker rules and granting 0 points if a player has collected no snowflakes.

Personal Opinion

When Wondrous Creatures first hit the table, raising an eyebrow at its obvious similarities to James A. Wilson’s acclaimed design, Everdell (tocho-review here), was practically inevitable. Before long, however, it proved to be a genuine evolution, smoothing out virtually every rough edge. Swapping out rigid pairing requirements for a much more organic and dynamic central-board harvesting system, coupled with card play and hand management that felt vastly more rewarding and far less restrictive, elevated the overall experience to a whole new level.

Given the game’s resounding success, the publisher was naturally eager to keep momentum going by releasing an expansion as soon as possible. That expansion has now arrived. Let us see how Winterfall performs on the table. As always when reviewing an expansion, I recommend checking out the base game tocho-review to brush up on concepts and impressions that will only be touched upon here.

After traversing the lush, sun-drenched landscapes of Starbeak, Winterfall transports us to a far more inhospitable and awe-inspiring era on the mysterious island. The idyllic weather that welcomed early expeditions has yielded to an unrelenting, drawn-out winter, revealing that the archipelago is actually governed by harsh, unpredictable climatic cycles. Blizzards blanket familiar trails in white and turn the terrain into a punishing landscape where survival becomes tough, yet simultaneously awaken mesmerizing phenomena and bring forth ethereal creatures that emerge only in the grip of the cold.

Broadly speaking, any expansion seeks to enrich the original experience along one of two avenues. On one hand, by filing down design balance quirks or oversights that only thousands of plays across a wide audience bring to light. On the other, by adding extra layers and new mechanisms that broaden strategic horizons, ideally without diluting the core loop that captivated players in the first place. Understanding what the base game truly needs is vital to avoid churning out superficial bloat.

Fortunately, Winterfall tackles both front lines. Let us begin with the new concepts, which are plentiful. The first striking change is the replacement of the original supply board, which was fairly basic, featuring only spots for the draw deck, discard pile, and six creature card slots. We are now greeted with a new board that adds reserve slots directly above the creature card display, two spaces for drawing and discarding event cards, and dedicated slots to hold the aurora tiles.

Turning to the Events: the progress track is now covered by new strips that designate certain milestones with one of two possible event types. These come in the form of event cards on one side, and aurora tiles on the other. Event cards frequently trigger snowfall onto the card supply slots. These snowflakes function essentially as a new resource that pits players against one another to collect the most, which is achieved whenever you claim a card from the display, sweeping up any snowflakes resting above it at that moment.

Beyond snow, events unleash Blizzards—tokens placed onto specific resource hexes that block gathering resources there until a player activates the space, forcing them instead to claim a matching creature card from the market.

Meanwhile, Aurora tiles are also placed over resource hexes, but rather than shutting them down, they replace the space’s action with the ability printed on the tile. This ability can only be triggered a limited number of times; once its tokens are exhausted, the tile is discarded, revealing the original space beneath to function normally once more.

Clearly, the goal behind these additions is to inject dynamism into the map, which, in the base game, tends to steadily open up more harvesting spots as turns go by, gradually easing board tension and quickening the pace.

One might worry that blocking or swapping space actions would grind the game’s rhythm to a halt, but in practice, the change feels natural and sharpens the contest over board positioning, keeping high-value spots constantly shifting. It works nicely, although it undeniably adds a touch of upkeep without drastically redefining core sensations.

Perhaps the most impactful element among all of these is the race to hoard snowflakes, which leads straight into the biggest mechanical refinement over the base game: the objectives. In the original design, a slight imbalance was felt during setup because one of the seven animal types was always left out of the objective cards, creating a sense of unfairness. If a player found it strategically appealing to build into that excluded animal type, then aside from card effects and possible general scoring, committing to that species locked them out of competing for species-specific objectives.

This has now been overhauled so that every single animal type is represented in objectives, whether through milestone race cards or end-game projects (which sit alongside the snowflake majority). This proves to be a crucial fix because it levels the playing field and ramps up competitive tension across both the mid and late game, all without overcomplicating rules overhead. It is how the game should have functioned from the start.

Achieving this balanced setup required introducing an eighth animal type—Spirits—which significantly bolsters the creature deck with new cards, corresponding eggs, and fresh synergies. Many of these new cards also introduce a welcome search effect: players name a desired type and reveal cards from the deck until a match turns up, discarding the rest. It is a practical addition that smooths out card draw variance. Once again, an absolute hit.

One component worth highlighting is the prelude cards. While some might suspect a nod to Terraforming Mars (tocho-review here) and its essential expansion, these simply establish a starting distribution for snowflakes and open up a couple of wild resource spaces that grant any resource on demand. They inject a pleasant dash of opening variability that primes the pump for the snowflake race.

Naturally, the captain roster expands as well. More magnetic meeples and captain boards arrive with varied effects to diversify setups (even if the base game and existing mini-expansions already provided a generous selection). As expected, this offers welcome variety without adding rule complexity.

Production values hold the high standards of the base game: thick, sturdy cardboard punches, linen-finish cards with excellent snap and elasticity, and the thoughtful inclusion of both cardboard and wooden spirit eggs to ensure compatibility across all editions. The included resource and card trays are a great addition, though with them inside, the box will not close completely flush (expect a slight lid lift of a couple of centimeters). The rulebook is clear and well-structured, and Sophia Kang’s artwork across this vast array of off-brand Pokémon remains delightful.

And let’s wrap this up. Winterfall is an expansion for Wondrous Creatures that complements the core design by enriching board harvesting and card play with a new creature species and a dynamic weather event system. The tabletop experience gains tactical volatility thanks to space lockouts and an ongoing race for snowflakes, making every round feel tighter and more contested. Its greatest triumph lies in rebalancing the objective structure into a fairer competition where every species counts, while the Discover keyword helps mitigate deck variance. On the flip side, the blizzards and auroras introduce an extra layer of upkeep and micro-management that does not always translate into a massive experiential leap. Ultimately, it is a thoroughly solid, polished expansion that addresses earlier shortcomings and injects healthy tension without bloating the game’s core. For all these reasons, I give it a…