Forest Shuffle is a quick tableau-building card game for 2 to 4 players. The goal is to build a thriving ecosystem within your tableau by placing trees and tucking cards representing various animals, fungi, etc., under each of the four sides of those trees.

In each turn, players must either play a card or draw two cards from the deck or a shared display of face-up cards known as the clearing. Each card has a cost, which players cover by placing cards from their hands into the clearing. Cards in the clearing are available for any player to claim until they reach a limit of 10 cards, at which point they are all discarded.

Multi-use cards are one of my favourite mechanisms, and this game implements it well. Apart from tree cards, each other card is divided either vertically or horizontally, providing two placement options. Once a card is tucked, only its visible side is in play for the rest of the game. While this mechanic offers more options, it expands the decision space and can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis. Despite the hand limit of 10 cards, the fact that most cards are divided in two means you could potentially have up to 20 playable sides to consider.

In this game, you always face tough decisions. Playing one side of a card means losing the other. You also give up cards from your hand to pay for playing other cards. It’s all about compromise, and that’s what makes the gameplay fun.

The endgame trigger is interesting. Three winter cards are placed in the bottom third of the deck, with one at the top and two shuffled into it. They can appear at any time, and when the last one is drawn by any player, the game ends immediately. I love how these winter cards add urgency to the late game.

The artwork is stunning, and the game looks great on the table. The iconography is also clear and easy to learn. Despite these strengths, the graphic design has a couple of flaws. First, the banners on cards could use better and more distinct colours, as some of them are too similar and can be confused with each other. These banners are important as some cards reward bonuses if their cost is paid with certain colours. Also some cards score points for having eight different tree types. With some illustrations being similar, relying solely on the names of the trees to keep track of species can become cumbersome. This issue could be easily addressed by adding a number to similar tree cards, making it easier to hunt for missing trees.

Every card in this game scores points, either individually, for specific cards in your ecosystem, or for sets of certain cards. This allows you to focus on different strategies and play your cards in various ways to earn points. Building combos in this game is truly enjoyable. However, the biggest flaw of the game lies in its scoring mechanism. Keeping track of the cards that score points and calculating the final score at the end of the game can be time-consuming and prone to mistakes. Unfortunately, this scoring issue detracted from our overall enjoyment of an otherwise excellent game.

Overall, Forest Shuffle is a lot of fun. It’s quick, beautiful, thematic and implements some of my favourite mechanics very well. However, the long and tedious scoring is an issue for this game that might be a deal-breaker for some. It’s worth noting that this game is available on BGA, which eliminates the scoring issue and might provide a more enjoyable experience.

Disclosure: We received a review copy of this game. Also, there may be an affiliate link in the links included at the end of this article.