| 👨👩👧👦 | Players: 2-4 |
| ⏳ | Time: 40 mins |
| 🎂 | Ages: 8+ |
| ⚙️ | Mechanisms: Card Drafting, Worker Movement |
Deep in the forest, where no human has ever set foot, live the fairies. Dancing from mushroom to mushroom, they build their villages and visit their neighbours as they collect the mana needed to get them through the upcoming winter.
In Fairy Ring, you are trying to collect points by drafting cards and adding them to your tableau. There are 6 types of card, each depicting a different mushroom, which offer not only a variety of scoring options but also let your fairy move around the ring of cards played to the table.
Whichever mushroom card you finish on activates. If it’s in your own village only you get the points, but if you end your turn in a neighbour’s village, they get to score their card as well. Think of it as a little present for letting you stop by!
Since everyone selects their card together but only plays them as it gets to their turn, you can’t always predict what your neighbours will do. It’s this mix of planning and anticipating their actions that adds both fun and frustration to the game. Unless you are the first player you can’t be positive that the other players won’t make a move that will have you land somewhere unexpected!
The multi-use cards add such interesting decisions to the game. While you might want to take a certain card for scoring purposes, you also have to consider where it will move your fairy to. You want to maximise the points you earn while not being too generous to other players.
Fairy Ring is super cute and easy to learn, but can also be surprisingly crunchy. We love the unpredictability that comes from having to select your card before any are played, and the interaction you get from other players changing their village just before you take your turn keeps you on your toes.
We had friends over a few weeks ago and thought that the combination of cute art and easy gameplay would be a hit with them, and we were spot on! It only took a couple of turns for them to get a feel for the game, and we loved seeing how it clicked for them as they started to make clever choices. I think we taught them a little too well though as they beat both of us in the second game! 😂
We’ve also had a chance to try it out with the optional objective cards mixed in, and while they don’t change the game that much, they give you some cool extra things to think about and are a great way to score more points.
While our shelves don’t have mush-room left, we’ve definitely made space for this. We can’t say enough good things about Fairy Ring, so make sure to check it out when it’s released in a few days time!
You can see our Instagram posts about this game here and here. If you are interested you can find out more about the game on the Repos Production website!
The copy of Fairy Ring used for this review was provided to A Tale of Two Meeples by VR Distribution
The Boardgame Detective 