Forest Shuffle

(upbeat music) Welcome to replayable, where we go into depth on our favorite tabletop games that keep us coming back again and again. I'm the start player Todd, and today I'm joined by David and Paul. For our 31st episode, we'll be walking amongst the trees in Forest Shuffle. It was designed by Koch and released by Lookout Games in 2023 with artwork by Tony Lobe and Judith Pailla. Are you two ready for a Serratinal Saunter? - I pitched my tent and I got out my binoculars.

I'm up for some nature watching right now. - There you go. - I'm ready to pet the deer. (laughing) Forest Shuffle is a card game where players compete to gather the most valuable trees, then attract species to them. The goal is to create the best ecosystem for flora and fauna. The inclusion of multi-use cards means that when you play a card, you pay for its cost using more cards from your hand. Discarded cards go into a clearing and are eligible to be retrieved by other players.

When the clearing reaches 10 or more cards, they are all removed. At the start of the game, three winter cards are placed in the bottom third of the draw pile. The game ends when the third winter card has been drawn. Let's see here. Which one of you has taken a walk in the forest the most recently? - Unfortunately, it's probably not me. I really miss the woods and I've been too urban for too long. - Yeah, I mean, I go to a urban forest, a nature trail every Sunday.

Whoa, but it's surrounded by freeways and buildings. (laughing) - And plenty of wildlife, probably. Sneaking in the corners. - Oh, yeah. - You get to start us off here. 2023, if you have looked at the games that were released, they're quite a few that have received a lot of critical acclaim. I mean, this seems like it was a banner year. I've worked on those one amongst many. What are some of your favorites that were released last year and how do you think forest shuffle stacks up?

- Well, for me, my favorite is for a shuffle. (laughing) It is my most played game from 2023. - Yeah, I have to also shout out to Dune Imperium Uprising, Sky Team, and Great Western Trail New Zealand. Those are also favorites of mine. - Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think Great Western Trail New Zealand, more is to be seen. So I think that hasn't hit the table for the last time. I think we'll be seeing that quite a bit more. - Oh, I'd love to play again, yeah.

- Yeah. Well, maybe started a little earlier next time. (laughing) - Yeah, that was a painful decision to play it through to the end. Last night. - Yeah, maybe we should put some full disclosure is we're playing this, we're last night, we played our game night, Great Western Trail New Zealand, and we went maybe one o'clock. - Right. - Right guys on the road home by one. - Yes. - A little after, yeah. - Yeah, and our days of staying up all night are kind of behind us.

So, I mean, this might be a little loopy. We'll see how this one goes tonight. - No, that's just, that's gonna be pure quality content right there. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, look, of the games released in 2023, at least you put together a list for us, which I think is just looking at it, just a banner year almost for games. It's not letting up. We're getting year after year of fantastic games. Of these games though, I think Forest Shuffle is probably the most OG game that I can see.

So, the trend of modern games continues, but it's really happy to see that some of these OG elements are kind of staying alive and coming back at us at new fresh ways. - Well, Dave, how does it stack up against, say, Earthborne Rangers? - Or Lorkana. - It's, well, Lorkana was also, I wouldn't say an OG kind of game, but it's definitely an old kind of game 'cause it's straight out of the 90s collectible card game fad.

But, I mean, stack up, Earthborne Rangers is, it's not a new genre, and we'll talk about it more if we ever get to it on this podcast, but it's expanding on a relatively new genre. So, it's hard to even compare 'cause it's moving in such a different direction with narrative and things like that. Or I'd be hard pressed to compare them 'cause it's very much apples and oranges or butterflies and mushrooms, I think. (laughing) Nice way to keep it on topic.

Beyond that, you know, the White Castle, and I would say we have to get to ride legacy that also came out. I mean, a lot of great games, and Forest Shuffle manages to stand out amongst such august company. A lot of it, I think, has to do with that attractiveness of multi-use cards and cards only. I mean, there's something elegant and nostalgic about that format for me. Yeah, I can't put my finger on it. It's just a bit of druid magic or something.

(laughing) Well, I think in some ways, Todd and I are saying the same thing. When I'm calling it OG, you're calling it elegance, which is, I think, one of the hallmarks of OG. When we look at these list of other games, I love doing Imperium and our little players of Uprising look promising, but I wouldn't call that an elegant game.

It's fun for different reasons, but Forest Shuffle has components straight out of games we were playing 20 years ago, yet it doesn't feel like a copycat or a rehash, really. They're almost kind of hidden in the game. Some specific elements that I think I didn't see my first few plays, and once one of you kind of illuminated it for me, I thought, oh, I can look at this game in a whole new way, and I don't want to reveal that yet, but we'll get to that as we talk about it more. Right.

All right, how about continuing the current trend of ecology-themed games? 'Cause we've seen quite a few of those recently, too. You know, as we move away from colonial themes and spice trading themes and some of these themes that were starting to get a little tired in their own right, but also we were starting to see kind of how they're problematic. Right.

And so now we're getting into anthropomorphized animals and a little more space themes and things like that, and so the rise of the nature-themed game makes sense because nobody's offended by a beautiful forest. Yeah, you know, I gave a shout out to Forest Shuffle back when we did our Arknova podcast.

And I think Forest Shuffle takes it a step further in that it doesn't have any plastic or components or packaging, and from personal experience, I've played it over a dozen times by hand, and it's still just as good as the day I opened it. Yeah, we commented on that last night. I said, we were playing Paul's copy, and I said, you're eventually gonna have to get these things sleeved because, you know, they're gonna start to show where, and he goes, this is like the 12th and 15th play.

They're fine. They still feel brand new, and I said, yeah, actually, that's true. They're holding up very well. They are, absolutely. All right, so let's talk about some of the concepts of the game. Let's talk about the clearing. That's another one of those features of this game that while I haven't seen it done in this exact method or implementation, it certainly feels familiar, right?

As far as I'm gonna discard some cards, and then you have an opportunity to benefit, perhaps, 'cause the thing I don't want may be the exact card you were looking for. How do you like the mechanism of the clearing and perhaps the timing issue of it? - Yeah, it's as old as Majang or Rummy, right? Where part of the game is picking up your opponent's discards.

But one of the things that makes the clearing special to me is that if you know your opponent wants a card, you can time your discard such that they can't get to it since the clearing is wiped whenever it reaches 10, right? - That's exactly what I was gonna say, is it may feel familiar because it's from the 1800s in a game called Rummy. - That's why we deal. - That's what we deal with. - We're that old, no. (all laughing) - Today it feels like it.

But no, that idea where I can't use this card, but I know you can, so I can't safely discard it, it creates a nice tension in the game. And I really like what Paul was bringing up on that too, that idea of timing that discard to get that wiped off of the board. I had a few interesting decisions on that last night when we played because I was, what Paul and Greg were both going for, what was the tree you were going for? - The horse chestnuts. - The horse chestnuts.

And Greg was closer to me in turn order. So I knew, and I was holding one, and I really wanted to discard it, but if I knew Greg's gonna get that card and put it into play. And the same time, Todd and I were competing on the Linden tree, as far as who's gonna have the most. And I had a Linden tree, I was ready to discard 'cause I felt like I had enough. But I needed to time both of those were, I didn't want either of those to get into your two guys' hands.

And it made for an interesting tension as I was playing through trying to accomplish what I wanna accomplish, but also put the kabosh on what you're trying to accomplish. - Very true. Yeah, it reminds me of some of the classic OG games that have strong left-right bindings where you see someone doing something. And if you're sitting immediately preceding them in turn order, you start copying them because you get to scoop up on all the same things and prevent them from getting any.

- Right, in fact I think Greg had a similar experience to that exact thing where he saw what you were doing and recognized that he should have been picking up those grids out of you. - Yeah, so I started the game by playing a chestnut and then Greg's like, oh, instead of actually discarding these, I'm just gonna play 'em instead. - Right, right. - Well, you did all right, but since he was sitting to your immediate right-- - We'll get to that.

- Yeah, but yeah, since he was sitting to your immediate right, that was gonna hinder, I mean, you certainly weren't gonna see any of them in the discarding or in the clearing unless something popped up from somebody playing a tree or Greg specifically playing a tree or something like that. - Right. - But how many did you end up getting, even with Greg actively trying to prevent you from getting those chestnuts? How many did you get into play? - The two I started the game with.

- Oh, and that was it? - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, and Dave, I remember when you made that play and you got rid of the horse chestnut and did you also get rid of the Linden tree? - That was later. - That was later? Well, on one of those, you also got rid of the last fire salamander that I was waiting for, 'cause I already had two of them. And I remember I told you about-- - When he was in the clearing. - Yeah. - Yeah, well, he put it into the clearing, but then the clearing got to 10 and got one.

- I put it in the clearing, but right, Dave saw that. - Did I? - Well, he said he didn't, that was the thing. And I was like, I didn't. I was like, Dave, that was really well timed 'cause, you know, I had two of those and that's the difference between like 10 and 25 points for the set, if you can pick up the third. So it was a 15 point card for me. And Dave wiped the clearing, unknowing that I was looking for.

(laughing) - Even worse, my theme of the night last night was to spoil you at every possible turn, apparently unknowingly to me. - Yeah, the mission accomplished. Although, you know, you were playing Linden trees, I was playing Linden bees. - Yeah. (laughing) - Well, but in some ways, that's an element of the game I've been grumbling about a little bit.

I like keeping track of a little bit of, you know, what you're doing and trying to prevent you from doing that, but there's a lot that other people are doing. So I had no idea that I wiped that salamander for you. I mean, if I'd known, I would have done it with Glee. - Right. (laughing) - But I was probably playing into by giving people cards that helped them as much as I was inadvertently disrupting them. And it's just, there's a lot going, and this is in the multiplayer version.

We were playing five last night, which pretty high player count for this game, I think. - It's max. - So there's so many things going on in other people's forests that it's very difficult to keep track of what everybody's doing. - Yeah, and paying attention to it, also just knowing what's possible.

So there's definitely a knowledge component to this game that far exceeds games that I would consider to be like it, right, like in San Juan, you just need to know that you have basically the three six buildings that you can play, whether it's a city hall, guild hall, or the triumphal arch, and how those are constructed.

But there are so many other combos in Forest Chuffle that if there's a player that knows what's out there and what's possible, they definitely have a distinct advantage that I don't think is as easily met because they're options. - I think it's pretty comparable to San Juan as far as the knowledge benefit. There's definitely more cards, but in my opinion, a lot of the combos are not that powerful, but there are a few that are extremely powerful. - Yes, there are.

- Well, I think I would disagree a little bit on that because a key difference between San Juan and Forest Chuffle for me is, and San Juan, it's more of a race where I'm gonna be getting good value out of my cards. And there's almost nothing you can do that's gonna prevent me from getting X points from this card that I play. Because you don't have to worry about what you're discarding.

- Right, well, I'm thinking in the sense of the woodpecker, which scores based on if nobody has more trees than you. - Oh, the comparative cards, yes. - Right, in San Juan, there aren't any cards that I'm gonna play that may be worth nothing at the end, without me knowing, like I might play a six value card that's gonna have no value at the end, but that's my own doing.

But this idea of playing some cards, maybe even doing well with it and somebody sneaking up on you with some other way to outpace you in that element, and then you get nothing for it, that I think is a little deflating. - Yeah, I agree. - And like the Linden trees, it says right up front, it's worth one point or three points if nobody else has more than you. So that one, you can see where that trade off is gonna be. - Right, and I argue with the others, you can see it too.

And you call it deflating, I call it invigorating. (laughing) - I think it's invigorating once you know what to expect, but as you're still getting accustomed to the game, I agree Dave, like it's deflating when I'm sitting over here and I'm doing my combos, and I think I've got a pretty good score going, and then it turns out that Paul comes up with a combo that scored, what was it, 120 points between your wolves and your deer?

- Oh yeah, I had six deer and two wolves, and it was like 114 just from those eight cards. - Right, and Megan just started laughing 'cause it was like what are the rest of us even doing in this game? - That's right. (laughing) - Well the element where Todd and I were competing for Linden Trees, that I thought was a fun, I mean I wouldn't really call it a cat and mouse game, but I was sitting two players to your right. So I could kind of keep pace with you playing Linden Trees.

- You had a slight advantage, yeah. - Yeah, and I had a few in my hand, so at one point Todd asked me how many Linden Trees you add, and my answer was always gonna be one more than you, 'cause if you play one, I'll play another one. - Right. - What took me by surprise is just I don't know what the deck well enough is that bees count as trees, and that's the sort of photo I've got from under you, saying that, I mean what was my comment at the time? Is this supposed to make me like the game more?

(laughing) - It was exactly what it was. - It's this element, this kind of gotcha surprise that familiarity is totally gonna solve. - And that's what I'm saying, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's a big enough deck where it's gonna take a few plays to get that familiarity, like that. - It's a good demonic though, bees count as trees. (laughing) - We'll never forget, will I? - No, no you won't.

(laughing) All right, we talked about the timing and the timing of the clearing as far as being able to get rid of cards. How about the timing of the clearing with respect to ending the game? - Oh, the winter cards? - Even at the beginning of the game, you could play a faster game by always top decking instead of drawing from the clearing. And that was something that stood out to me even last night was like every time I draw two cards from the clearing, I am prolonging this game. - Right.

- And if those cards really aren't adding value to my Tableau and I'm just picking them up so that I can pay with them, then I should just be top decking. - Well, it's the same decision as Lost Cities. - Right. - Do you feel like you're in a position to win if the game is extended or do you feel like that's your opponent and so you have to hurry it up? It really comes to a head when you play this game to player. - Right. And I feel like one of you should always be pushing.

It's a little bit like San Juan that way too, like somebody should be pushing the game clock. And one's in the lead. - Right. Whoever's winning, basically, or whoever needs the game to be shorter. - Right. - The race for the galaxy is the same way. One player wants the game to go quicker than another player. - Right. And those positions may switch and do shift many times during the course of the game. So how do you like that inclusion for a shuffle? - I love the clearing.

I think that's a big part of what makes the game enjoyable for me. - Yeah, I agree. - It makes it totally wonderful. I love variable game lengths. We're player driven game lengths where a player can put their foot on the gas or put their foot on the brakes or something like that. I really enjoy that being a game, especially introduced to that, a push your luck element where we're on borrowed time, where this game's gonna, I don't know if I'm gonna get another turn or not.

That's a really juicy, interesting decision space at the end of this game when you're in that position. - Well, right. Because like in Lost Cities, I'm sure we've done the thing, right, where you take the bottom five cards and you set them and then you take the next five and you set them crosswise. So it's like a visible game timer. You know how many cards are remaining in the deck in Lost Cities. And then the game is going to end when you reach the bottom.

But this, you don't know when that third winner card's gonna show up. You think if the game is better or worse for that unknown ending on the timer? - For me, it's absolutely better. - Yeah. - Because if it is known, then people are gonna start min-maxing and making calculation after calculation, after analysis paralysis to extend the game length. The variable ending keeps it choppy and keeps it quick.

- Yeah, I agree 100% on that, where it starts to become calculable as to can I squeeze out one more point? Can I rob you of one more point? And that's really gonna slow it down like the end of an NBA basketball game. That part of the game, it's similar to me to a game like Alhambra that wins that last card gonna show up. How much more can I squeeze out? Because you've got that card hidden somewhere at the lower portion of the deck that's gonna jump at you by surprise.

- Yeah, not last night's game, but the one we played two weeks ago, we hit the first two winter cards fast. And then the last one was in the last, I don't know, five or six cards of the deck. So we had a long run of thinking the game could end at any moment. - And being on pins and needles, yeah. - Am I gonna be able to draw again? Does it make sense for me to even try? And then the game kept going. It was great and it was also agonizing at the same time.

- Especially because I don't know about you guys, but I was constantly trying to get down to zero or one card. So I didn't feel like I had held any points back, but the game just kept going, right? - Yeah, you put it all out there. That happened to me actually last night as well. I put it all out there and I think this game needs to end because I need a turn to draw cards and then a turn to play them again. Like I don't know if I'm gonna get two turns. - Right. - So I, yeah.

Ticket to ride does that to you sometimes too, or right at the end, like I don't have enough cards to play right now, but if I draw them, I'm not gonna get another play of putting drains out there. - Right. Then it becomes a function of keeping track of how many cards everybody else has in their hand, which works better in the city versions of Ticket to Ride because you tend not to hoard cards as much as you do in the full versions of the games. Oh, you've got 12 cards in your hand, you know?

That doesn't happen much in the like Ticket to Ride, New York or London. - So I do have a question for you guys. So in Ticket to Ride, when I get to the end, if I'm holding a hand of 10 cards or something like that, I feel like I've very inefficiently played to the end of the game here. Do you feel that way or is that happening to you sometimes in Forest Shuffle where you get to the end and you're holding six cards? You think, well, I really kind of overshot my finished line here.

- I mean, it happens to me a lot, but I don't feel that way because I know that the end game was basically random. Could have happened anytime. - Well, when you're getting in that borrowed time of the third winter is gonna show up. I mean, you can't plan three turns ahead. You can maybe plan a turn and a half ahead. So somewhere between one and two. - So it's really interesting because I've played the game on BGA.

I was in a tournament and there was a very heated game where one of the things I actually don't like on BGA is it allows you to turn on live scoring. So BGA will tell you what everybody's score is second by second. And I realized that even though two winter cards were revealed, there was no way I was gonna retake the lead in one or two turns.

So I instead had to just pray that the game continued until the last four or five cards in the deck and strategically find some new combos to overtake the lead. And it actually worked out for me and the winter card was in fact the very last card of the deck. - Oh wow, that game. - That's interesting. I like that. So you're almost in tilt mode where you have to go big and if you get caught before you're ready, oh well, you were gonna lose anyways.

But if it shows up late and you pull this off, then you'll be able to overtake the leader. - That's what happened, yeah. - Wow. So I was holding a raccoon in my hand when the game ended last night. And the plan was when I thought it was getting ready to end, have enough cards in my hand to make it worthwhile, but the raccoon allows you to place all of the cards in your hand, any number of cards in your hand, into your cave.

And so it would have wiped my hand, but if you think the game's gonna end soon, then it's not a bad way to get extra points if you're-- - Well, more importantly, the raccoon replaces every card you put in your cave with a draw from the deck. So it's gonna make that winter happen too sweet. (laughs) - Yeah, so like my last turn as it turned out, I should have played the raccoon 'cause I could have hastened the ending of the game. - Yes. - At least increase the chances of it, yeah.

- Yeah, I really love the composition of these cards. Trees are an entire card, and then you've got the split cards, right? Either left, right. And then the other side is gonna be hidden behind the tree that you attach it to. And same thing with the ones that are split, top, bottom.

I think it's an ingenious mechanism, and I also noticed that a lot of times there will be a wolf that wants to eat the European hairs or a fox that wants the European hairs, and there's a European hair on the other half of the card. - Yep, right. (laughs) - And the same thing with bats, and I think there's a bug that gives you a bonus depending on the number of unique bats you have.

But there's a bat on the same card, and I think it's interesting the way that they make it agonizing that the thing you want to collect is the thing you have to cover up. - Yeah, I think you mean the door mouse that's worth 15 points if it's in the same tree as a bat. It's always paired with a bat. - Right, right. - Well, and that just plays into hand management.

So my first game, I think I played every card with a hope and a dream, and that is not the way to play this game, is to play a fox and hope I draw some hairs later. It's like lost cities. If I think of every tree or everything that goes on that tree as a new expedition, I'm gonna wait until I build up in my hand. So I see, can I support this expedition? I'm not gonna spend all this money on, I'll say the fox and the hairs.

I'm not gonna spend all this money on the fox, so I'm not gonna get any hairs or vice versa. And that one's interesting too, because you're better off playing the hairs first, because then when you play the fox, you get to draw some cards. So even those start to interact with each other as to which one I'm gonna get out there first. And you can only hold 10 cards max in your hand, which is a frustrating little thing going on. - Limitation. - I love that, yeah.

And I agree to me, the pairing of left, right and top, bottom, really add even more to the overhead required to play this game well, yeah. - Yeah, at least being able to see the combinations that you're gonna try to set up. Do you have a good way of organizing your hand that you don't forget? 'Cause I mean, there have been times where I looked at man and I thought, okay, I'm gonna play this a certain way. And then it comes my turn and I forgot that that was the combination I was going for.

And I almost discarded a key card for it to pay for something. And I was like, oh, wait, no, no. I can't get rid of that card. I need to save that card because it has whatever on it. It has a hair or it has a fox or it has a wolf, whatever the case we be. - Yeah, personally, I put the cards I wanna play closest to my face and the cards I wanna discard closest to my hand.

- Okay. - It's gin, Rummy, you know, sets your working on cards that you don't wanna discard because your neighbor wants them or it's same kind of thing, where you have different places in your hand. I actually, last night at one point, I had so many different things to consider. Cards I wanna discard, cards I wanna discard but can't, cards I can play, cards I might play, cards I definitely won't play.

And so I started just laying them out in little pot, just to get like four little piles in front of you. Which is how my children play Rummy. You know, it's like, in my heart, those are my diamonds, and I figured it works for them. You know, and then I would pick them all back up and put them in order, but I just had to take a page out of my kid's playbook. (laughing) Got it. So is there engine building? Absolutely. Yeah, this game is all about combos.

Well, I don't think combos in engine building are the same thing, is what I mean by engine building is in the beginning of the game, are you setting up some sort of economy? Hmm. Or do you just sometimes luck into it? I don't think you luck into it. So the combos I'm thinking of are not just two or three card combos, they're like eight or nine card combos. Right. And once you see three of that larger meta combo, I prefer to just dig in and try to get as many of those as I can. Sure, right here.

So you're not differentiating between early game economy cards and mid to late game VP cards. The only differentiation I have is the mushrooms. Yeah. I will never play a mushroom late. Right, that makes sense. You don't have enough time to recoup. The value of the tempo that you sacrifice to play it. Exactly. Going back to the clearing, have you drafted four colors specifically so that you can invoke the binocular ability on a card that you're holding? When it's taken another turn, absolutely.

Hmm. OK. Yeah. Is that the only one that's worth going after or is taking another turn? I think it's the most important one. But if I'm OK with extending the game like we talked about, then I'll try to activate as many binoculars as I can. The problem, though, is that with the 10 card limit, I usually have four or five cards I want to play. So I've only got room in my hand for five or six cards. I can discard to put those out.

Well, I may be seeing part of the reason I've been doing so poorly in this game. But I hadn't thought about that idea of drafting because they're multi-use cards, of drafting cards specifically to be used as payment. Absolutely. Usually, I'm trying to only draft cards that I can use and then cards that don't quite fit get defaulted to payment.

But yeah, if there's a couple of maple tree icons sitting out there and I'm going to be playing the maple tree or whatever it is, then I'm just looking to pick up more cards. I've got to pay something for the tree, I might as well. Because something, you know, I have hesitation with that because I'm thinking of, say, it's an extra turn, which like Paul was saying, would be the most strongest, I'm spending a turn in order to get an extra turn later.

But I think, is that really giving me any tempo? It goes with the hand management. It's allowing you to keep the cards you want to play. Right. And even more, if the cards you're using to gain that extra turn are ones you want to play later, you can pick them right back up again with that extra turn. Well, yeah, Todd pulled that off. I'm sure you did too.

And, you know, a couple of times last night where we put these juicy cards out in the clearing and, oh, I get another turn, I'll just take them right back. Right. And in one of those, I didn't even need to discard the juicy card. I could have picked up a blind one off the top of the deck and hung onto it. And I was doing that for color, that one. What about point scaling?

So as the game draws near its conclusion, you should be either adding to your existing power combos if you have them, or hopefully finding the last card in a butterfly set, something like that. Is there any rule of thumb that when you think it's a last turn, you should be getting at least, I don't know, three to five points for a card that you play? Can you plan that specifically? I feel like when you're getting in that borrowed time, each turn is what's the max I can do right now.

Because this could be my last. Yeah, to me, it really matters whether or not I know my opponent's score. When we're playing face to face, I'm not going to care what your score is. I'm just trying to play what's best for me. Well, you don't have to, based on your score last night. When you have three times the score of the person in second place.

Like I said, in my story about my online game, if I know the opponent's score, then, yeah, sometimes it's just like, OK, I'm going to have to have three turns of not scoring any points, so I can score big with a combo. I would think in general, though, the big combos, like the wolf and the deers, or the fox and the hairs, those kinds of things, I think those should have been planned out and executed by the time you're getting into the bonus time. It can be a big game.

If you're looking to top deck a wolf, you might get lucky, but I don't think it's supposed to be that kind of game. Yeah, I tell you what, last night's game, I got real frustrated in that I played a card. I forget what kind of card it was, but it allowed me to play an animal for free. Probably the badger. And the foxes are a little expensive, right? As are the wolves, so I put a fox out there and I had one hair, one additional hair in my hand, and I thought, oh, this would be great.

I'll go ahead and have lots of hairs. I think I had five of them in the last game. And we just didn't see him. People were burying him. People were hiding him behind trees. There just were not a lot of hairs in last night's game that got played, and so that was one of those where I had invested in the fox early, assuming I would see hairs, but it didn't happen. Well, I was too, you're right.

And so I was actively trying to scoop up hairs or making sure they just because I was also, I started the game with a fox and a hair. So I knew I was fishing for as many as I could get. Oh, okay. Interesting. I also had two hairs in my starting hand, but I just figured since it's a five player game, they're not gonna be worthwhile. And you were right. But I'm one of the people who hid them behind my trees by playing the other side. Yes, right.

(laughing) Well, it was a good strategy for you to follow. You know, we talked about the cave a little bit, and honestly, I don't think it's that good. It seems very weak, except for very low scoring games. But I did notice when we were researching for this podcast that the expansion does greatly increase the cave effectiveness by having animals like vultures that give you extra points for your cave cards. Ah! And I think that's interesting.

Yeah. One card for me was worth 12th points in the cave, right? I had a bear. Bear, yeah. I've been holding onto it just so I could time it. When it came around the corner of Past Meghan, if there was a juicy clearing out there, that was gonna worth a ton of points. Now's the time to play the bear. And that part worked out well. It seems as it is now in the base game, the use of the cave is highly situational.

If you get the opportunity to jump on it, but you're not gonna necessarily build your game around it. Right. Same with the most often forgotten rule, at least amongst our group. (laughing) Absolutely, right? And that's the ability to play a card is a sapling. If you need a tree and you don't have a tree. Oh yeah. (laughing) So, you know, I think that's especially important for what we talked about earlier with the woodpecker or the moss. Right.

You're just like, oh, you're gonna come after me for taking my woodpecker points away. I'm just gonna start playing saplings. And those saplings will count as trees according to the woodpecker. Absolutely, they also count as trees for the sycamore. 'Cause they have the tree symbol on them. Woodpeckers can't pick saplings. Interesting. Okay. They're not worth points and they don't have-- Yeah, it seems like a weak play. It's a weak play. I'd rather play a birch tree, which draws me a card. Right.

All right. With that, let's move on to the prompts. Wait in complexity on board game geeks scale of one to five. How would you rate the weight of Forest Shuffle and Paul, since you won our game last night? Let us know how easy it is. Yeah, I rated it two. I think it only took one play for my wife to get it. All right. Dave, what did you have it down as? It's clearly a two.

I mean, it might start as a two and a half because here's another big deck of cards I gotta learn before I can get proficient at a game. And that's kind of the way of things these days. But once you get some basic familiarity, there's no surprises under the hood. The iconography is very good. What you're trying to do is very simple. The hand management is one of the more exciting parts of the game, but it's not nothing new in hand management. It's kind of things we already know how to do.

So yeah, it's absolutely a two in my book. Yeah. I had it down as a two as well. I think it's close to another favorite of mine. I think they're similar in weight. There's definitely more to think about than just draw a card and play a card. But there aren't a lot of fiddly rules. At least you probably some cards have exceptions, but they're not too bad, right? Like the hair is being able to have more than one on a side of a tree, but that's not a big deal. It's right on the card.

It's right on the card. Yeah. So I have it down as a two as well. Well, then something like bees or trees though, and sometimes it's right on somebody else's card. So, right? No, it's just, there's the learning curve of getting to know the deck, what the possibilities are. And being able to identify it from across the table. Yes. Right? So that's fair. So then strategy, how much opportunity do you think there is for a strategy in the game on the same scale? I rated it three.

I think there is a good deal of long-term planning early on, but you reach a point where the deck gave you the cards you're going to get and you just got to make the best of it. Mm-hmm. OK. I also had it down as a three, mostly because it feels like the game, to me, is really about curating your hand while you have the opportunity to do so. And I love that constant anxiety of, can I draw two more cards right now? But if I do, that might take me up to nine.

And when it comes back around, I'll only be able to pick up one card. So maybe I should play something and get down to seven so that I have the opportunity of taking two cards on the next turn if needed. I mean, that whole idea is one of the things you're juggling while you're planning how you're going to play your combo. So for me, it's also a three. Yeah, I'm locked step with you guys there. It's a strong three in strategy.

And going, as we've talked about in other games that we really liked, it's trying to do what the game's telling you to do. If you're going to try to force a strategy, it's probably not going to play out for you. So being able to zag when the game tells you to zag and just being light on your toes as you move forward. But knowing when to do that and how to make the best of what's presented for you, it's a good three. Yeah. It's hard to do that sometimes, right?

I get pit bull locked on this is what I want to do. And I start trying to force the game to do something it doesn't want. So then Dave, what about luck? How much do you think luck plays a factor on the same scale one to five? I think luck scales directly with player count. So in a five player game, luck is going to be much higher. Is it a five? [LAUGHTER] How about player count minus one? OK. So five player, I'm going to give luck of four. Two player, it's a one. I'll stand by that.

I think that's a mic drop. I like that answer, right? We've done minutes per player count in time of games, but now we're doing luck per player. You gave a function as an answer. I'm like player count minus one. Shaw dropped, yeah. But I'm not wrong, am I? Well, so two player, the biggest butt-clinching moment is when you play a tree mid game. Yeah. Because let's say you need that third salamander.

You're thinking to yourself, when I play this tree, is that third salamander going to be the card that flips out? And when it does, your opponent's just going to take it right away. So that is the primary source of luck in the two player game, is the tree addition to the clearing. But overall, I just rated it a three, because luck is definitely a factor, but I think you can usually outplay it.

Yeah. I originally had it down as a three, too, but I'm getting on board the player count minus one butt, so I really liked that. [LAUGHTER] It makes sense. Yeah. So then theme, how much do you think the theme has been integrated with the game on the same scale? One to five. Paul? For me, it is a four. I really adore the theme of this game. It is just cute and adorable. The first several times I played it, I thought it was friendly before finding out it's actually quite cutthroat.

And the component quality is amazing and fitting for the theme. All right, and Dave, what do you have for theme? I'm going to agree here. The theme is really solid here. Foxes eat hairs, fungi grow together. There's lots of stuff that inform the mechanics of the game that also fit thematically. I'm thinking it's a four, but I'm thinking I might bump it up again because this being part of the lookout spiel, what do they call it, the green line games?

So they've gone a step further with the theme by, like we mentioned in the beginning, producing a game without plastics and making a very low carbon footprint eco-friendly biodegradable game. And so that in a nature themed game, I feel like that gives it a little bump. So I'll give it a four plus. You'll give it a five. I don't know if I'm ready to go to five, but why not? I could give it a five as well. I mean, the theme is strong. The theme is great.

Like Paul was saying, it's adorable, but also there's a lot going on here where it makes it a solid game. Yeah, I mean, I had it down as a four as well. I like the idea of a meta point being added. 4.1, yeah. That's pretty cool. All right, so favorite player count. What is it best played at? And I feel like we've hinted at it. So let's go ahead and codify the answer. Paul, what do you have down as your favorite player account?

I honestly haven't played three player enough, but I think I prefer two and three player, because as we discussed, it has the least amount of luck. OK. And at least in your experience, would you say that two players, the better option? Compared to four or five, I prefer two. Yeah. OK. Yeah, 100% on that. I wouldn't be mad if this were marketed as a two player game. That wouldn't be strange at all, if it just was part of the old Cosmos 2 player line or something like that.

Right. So I have this down at three just because there aren't as many games that I think play as well at three. And there are a lot of games that play well at two. But two players also, excellent. Jill and I have played this a couple of times, but nowhere near what you have played, Paul. Yeah, I like Paul. I don't have a ton of experience at three players, but at least in theory, I'm not mad at it. I think three players. It seems like that would be very strong.

Four and five, well, I guess that hints into the next question. Four and five, we kind of start to get into a different area here. All right, well, just keep rolling. So least you have a player count, four or five. Five with four is a close runner up. It's OK. Your destiny, you start to lose control of your own destiny, I think, in some points. The player binding gets very strong. The player next to you, your fate is somewhat in their hands in some ways.

And it's just-- it becomes a much more chaotic game, I think. Yeah, I think five players, the clear winner, for least favorite. I still enjoy four player. OK. Yeah, I had five done as well. But as I was thinking about it, I guess it makes sense. I wonder if Dave and I were going head to head on the Linden trees, and Greg and Paul were going on the horse chestnuts. And Megan was just playing it for the first time, so I don't think she really had a strategy that she was pursuing.

Well, she was doing butterflies. She was. She had something else. But nobody else was doing butterflies. So she was kind of an odd man out, which I still think she didn't quite see. And that might have just been luck. She didn't really see as many butterflies. But none of us were really scooping up the butterflies. I just think it didn't fall down for her. Right. But what I'm looking at is, I think maybe at five, you get that one person who slips through, right?

And they're left alone, or their swim lane is left alone, and they're able to get a lot more points for it. Whereas, I think, in four, the likelihood that you end up colliding with someone is actually a little more focused. Because there are more opportunities to do things like collect hairs, right? At five, things are distributed enough that it's harder to have a sustaining combo. So actual playing time. Boxes can lie. And this one says that the playing time is 40 to 60 minutes.

Do you find that to be a good approximation? I think with experience, it might be closer to 30 to 45. I mean, it's got a pretty good bang-to-buck ratio on there. Is it-- it's almost filler territory once everybody's familiar with the game. Yeah, I'll over half my plays are two-player. But honestly, I don't think the play time changes between player count. And my average play time is 41 minutes. Oh, wow. So what did we clock in last night? Was it 50, 45 minutes? It was less than 50.

Yeah. It was 47. Well, I'm thinking, five players going to be even slower because we're kind of BS in a little bit, and there's a lot more table talk. And it was a teaching game for Megan. So that's always going to get a new player at the table. And we still came in under 50. I've had our long two-player games, but that's because we picked different swim lanes and kept picking up what the other person was putting down, which is into the game quite a bit. Amazing.

OK. It seems like an actual good estimate that 40 to 60 minutes for a game of four shuffle. Although I agree that if you're both pushing it, it could get down into the 30-minute range. So there is an expansion to this game, but I don't have any experience with it. Do either of you know much about it? All you had mentioned is something about caves and vultures. Yeah, it adds Alpine, Flora and Fauna to the game. And the one thing I noticed that intrigues me is it makes the cave more powerful.

Yeah. OK. Well, so I'm going to have to trust the designers on this one, because this is the same-- I mean, we'd have the same conversation we did about wingspan. Arc Nova, we talked about this, too. We're basically splashing cards in. And so we're diluting it. So if I'm going for fox and hairs, well, now I've got-- in fact, I wrote it down. We're adding 36 cards to the deck. So now I've diluted the deck. There's 36-- now 36 cards in the deck that aren't going to work for me.

We're also removing-- Well, they are adding cards that do work. So the analogs count as deer. They have hairs that say they count as European hairs. So they are weaving these new cards into the old ones. Right. And that was going to be my next point. It was that I haven't played the expansion. But in its favor, it looks like all of the cards fit in with the existing strategies. There may be some strategies, like butterflies, might get diluted.

I don't know if there's any butterflies in the-- Yeah, there's new butterflies as well. OK. So maybe if they're augmenting every existing strategy, then I think I trust the designers on this one. And it sounds like it might just be good, clean, fun. I don't know the-- Yeah, I expect the only thing it'll really do is extend play time. Well, because there's more cards? Yeah. Well, we're adding 36 cards and removing 15 to 25 more.

So we're-- though we're adding cards, we're removing more cards than we would normally remove. So I think it kind of balances back to the same-- we'll have to play it. I'm kind of pulling it out of the air here. But we'll have to play it and see. But I don't think it's going to extend it dramatically. OK. Most recognizable comparison. What is the highest ranking game that reminds you the most of Forest Shuffle? Dave. Well, thanks for letting me go first.

Now, we've already mentioned my answer a couple of times. So I first went into this game in my first four plays, five plays. I'm thinking this as a San Juan comp, or something like that. It was when, I think, one of you mentioned how the clearing is like Lost Cities, which is my answer for this question. It put this game in a totally different light for me.

Thinking of each tree or each strategy at least as an expedition that I'm going to prep for before I start playing and try to play it in a certain order or keep it out of the other player's hands. And that illuminated the game for me. And it made me like the game quite a bit more. And I just wasn't seeing that for my first few plays. But it's so obvious now that somebody's mentioned it to me. Well, this is like we always used to say, this game is game X is game Y on steroids.

In some ways, I might say this is a Lost Cities on steroids. Yeah. So Lost Cities was my answer, too. But I did have a backup, and that was San Juan. So congratulations. You nailed them both. Yeah. And if I go with the San Juan comparison, we're back to hand management and multi-use cards, which is just a winning mechanism for me. I absolutely adore it. So I was really happy to see it here. But of course, in San Juan, there is no clearing mechanism there.

If you discard a card, you won't see it again until you've run all the way through the deck and reshuffled and brought it back into the draw deck. Paul, what did you have? My most recognized little comparison is Glory to Rome. There you go. This game is all about combos. And Glory to Rome has some of the pickup which you put down as well. But if you want to win, you get a good combo. I mean, you get a game-breaking combo in Glory to Rome. Well, other players allow you to get that.

True. Does anybody play Glory to Rome these days? I never hear of it. Everybody loves it when it gets played. Honestly, I don't like Glory to Rome at all. Oh, OK. But I would happily play Innovation. Yes. Yes. If I did play Glory to Rome, Force Shuffle would have replaced it. This is a little foreshadowing there. A little foreshadowing. Yeah. We can play Glory to Rome. If you want to get the game out early, then I'll bring it and we can get a game in before everyone all shows up.

Well, which edition do you have? Because I know that's part of that game is the different editions. So I've got the original a cartoony version. Actually, I should have asked, which edition don't you have? Just the one? Right. I just have the one at the cartoony edition. I think Greg has the black box edition, which is the one that killed a company, if you are familiar with that particular story. All right, so less recognizable comparison. What did you guys have for the less recognizable one?

And Paul, I'll let you go first. OK. For me, it is Morel's primarily because of the theme. But it's also hand management, 100%. And it's kind of combo building. Well, it's set building, really. But it's a forest theme in Morel's. You're walking through a forest and picking up mushrooms so you can cook them later. And which one does your wife enjoy more? Forest shuffle or Morel's? Depends how much time we have. OK. Yeah. If we got 30 minutes, it's Morel's more than 30 minutes.

It's Forest shuffle. Awesome. Dave, what do you have? Well, it's ridiculous to call this a less recognizable game. But our criterion for this is that it has to be just outside the top 750. So I reduced it for this. You didn't even have to because my answer's rumming, which is like in the 2000s or 3,000 something. Look, you're drawing cards. You're melding cards. You're laying cards off on your tableau that you've melded in front of you.

And if you think of the combos as suits or trying to put together runs, it's really just a fancy version of that. And it's funny as much as I complain about this game as that the scarcity of these combos I'm trying to pull off where I'll sit and try to pull it inside straight on a run. I'm going for an Rummy, which is a 1 in 52 chance. It's even worse than this. But I somehow accept it better in a game of 500 rum or contract Rummy with my family than in a game like this. But it's very similar.

It's Rummy with whistles and bells. I really like that comparison. And you're right. So the reason why I said I dropped it is currently at number 723 is a game that won the Kennerspiel des Jares in 2023, I think, 2022. And that is Living Forest. This is you trying to collect different elements to play guardian spirits in front of you.

And then they're each contributing their various, either powers or their elements so that you can combo and then play additional spirits into your forest and accomplish those tasks using their attributes. And it's a great little game in the forest theme. It has some definite cartoonish artwork. And it definitely was a ready comparison for me. But just under the 750 mark. Well, now I see why you lowered that mark from 750 to 700 where you're just unashamedly saying, because your game was at 723.

100%. Yeah. OK, yeah. You need to do that when you're the host. That's right. So house rules, how would you improve the game? Any thoughts there? I don't have any yet. I've really wrapped my brain. I can't think of any. I wish I could play a cricket sound effect. Yeah. It would be very apt, too. You know, for me, I would love to try playing it with a known ending or at least a less variable ending. Oh, so you want to take out the funnest part of the game?

I don't-- it's not the funnest part of the game for me. I thought about, you know, if you shuffled it in to the last 10 or 15 cards, but really all you're saying is you need one winter card. When you see the winter card, the game is going to end, and it's going to happen sometime in the last fill in the number of cards versus-- Right. --it could happen anytime after you've uncovered two, like we did a couple weeks ago when we got too off the bat.

And so we had 30 cards of drawing that still-- So you're saying that the fact the game could end, let's say, you know, 1% chance with a third of the deck undrawn is what puts ants in your pants. What I don't like about the game. Yep. Literal ants in my pants. Thank you. Yes. Red ants and their biting. Thank you. Yeah. So this game is being played at game night. What do you want to play afterwards? What's the double feature game that goes best along with it? Nothing.

I want to play a game before this one. Yes. OK. OK. I also have that down as my answer. But what is that game? I would continue the theme and play Arknova, right? Instead of playing trees, you're playing zoo enclosures, but they call out to me to be together. I think that makes a lot of sense. I had Earth down for the same reason, right? You're building up an ecology. But it's another game in that style as Arknova or terraforming Mars. Well, interestingly, no wonder we are a game group.

Because my answer is terraforming Mars. So we've said three versions of very similar games. [LAUGHTER] For me, we've terraformed the planet. Let's get a forest going. Let's get some forest on it. Oh, yeah, I mean, you need this. It's terraforming Mars to a huge forest on Mars when you terraform it. So, yeah, it makes sense. That's right. Right. So if I had to think of maybe one other game lighter than this, how about arboretum?

Yes. Yeah. That's what my wife and I play when we only have 15 minutes. [LAUGHTER] So you have these three games stacked on top of each other. Exactly. Which one comes off the shelf is how much time you have? And if they have 90 minutes, it's Arknova. Yeah, exactly. Right. [LAUGHTER] All right, so what feature of the game still stands out to you? So this game is still a relative new one. What really has aged the best in its limited release time, Dave? It's the clearing.

And as we said, it's a rehash of Lost Cities. But to me, that's just the most interesting part of the game is that I can't give you cards that you're going to want or time them to wipe them as we've talked about. Just the way that discard interacts, I think it's just fantastic. And I think it's going to hold up for a while. Absolutely. Good call. Paul, what did you have? I couldn't decide between two things that I love about this game. One, being the clearing, like Dave said.

And two, being the variable game end, like you said. Yeah, I didn't say that was my favorite thing, though. [LAUGHTER] You said you wanted a house rule, but it's one of my favorite things. OK. Right. For me, I had the split cards, right? The left, right, top, bottom. Those are awesome, yeah. Yeah. That was a novel. But the clearing is also just a really strong mechanism that stands out, so I agree there. So what feature of the game now disappoints game length? What is age the worst for you?

Anything? My answer is nothing. Nothing. Game length, OK? Well, this isn't a big knock on the game. I mean, it shouldn't be. And this is not a big deck energy game that we've talked about. But it is another game we've come into yet another game where I've got to learn a whole new deck of cards. And it's in the zeitgeist right now. That's what's hot right now, or these aren't unique cards. So it's not quite the same as Arknova.

But again, in order to get proficient, I've got to learn a whole bunch of cards. But you can't knock the game for it. That's really what makes it sing. I mean, that's what's good about the game. It's just as a player, like, here we go again. So I actually grumbled through a few plays before my gaming friends start telling me, like, no, it's a good game. Trust us. And then I start, all right, I'll learn the cards and make it to the other side. Right. And appreciate declaring for what it is.

As you mentioned, that was your other aha moment. Right. OK. And, by the way, I didn't mean game length. I meant the game timer mechanism. Oh, we all do. You were talking about the winner cards. Yeah. I have it as one of my favorite features. And you have it as one of the worst features. Understand. Yeah. I didn't realize that you didn't like it so much. It's such a great tension at the end of the game. Do you like it in Alhambra or other games that do this? Like, this could be my last turn.

I don't know yet. I don't just don't like that ever. I love player-controlled endings to the game. But I also like knowing where that ending is, so I can control to it. Right. Yeah. St. Petersburg. I can-- Todd wants it to be a dart board instead of the broad side of a barn. And for a shuffle, it's the broad side of a barn. Yeah. Yeah. Well, or maybe this is the illusion of player-controlled. Like, we're trying to-- Also turn to the deck is controlling me into the game.

We're just trying to speed or slow down that deck. So it's not as player-controlled as we want it to be. Right. Or I should-- I mean, you want it to be. I like it really. No, you like it when it's in luck. We'll talk about it when we get to rain. Yeah, you know, I think the reason I love the variable game in so much is because I became so soured on a previous favorite game of mine called locomotive works.

Because of the minute calculations that everybody had to do at the end of the game, you had to, like, work backwards like a math problem to three turns before the end of the game to figure out what position you wanted to be at the end of the game. And so that developed a hatred of defined game endings for me. OK. It was such a good time we had with locomotive works. And that end game meta started to emerge.

And then it's starting to get to where sometimes even less than halfway through the game, where we start calculating. Where do I want to be? I'm planning for the end game from here. And there's a lot of basic arithmetic involved, but a lot of it. Take it the dope but no pad in the calculator. Yeah. I bought a pack of 10 mini calculators off Amazon. I just threw them in the box so everybody gets their player color, whatever it is, and a calculator.

It's such a great game that's also that end to totally destroy it. Yeah. But when you don't see it yet, it's a great ride until you see that ending. Yeah. Exactly. All right. So did this game replace a previous game for you? And I'll go ahead and answer first. And I suspect I'm actually going to possibly-- but I'm not going to say look about it works. I might be getting in Paul's way here. For me, it replaced Fox in the forest. But not Fox in the forest duet since that one is a cooperative game.

But I really can't imagine wanting to play Fox in the forest instead, given the same amount of time for each game. What did you have, Paul? Well, I still haven't adored Fox in the forest duet. I have never played Fox in the forest. OK. So for me, there is no specific game that Forest Shuffle has replaced. It has just stolen time from all the games I used to play to make a space for itself. OK. That's a great answer.

Well, often for this, we say no, it hasn't replaced a game because it's a new space or a new kind of game. In this case, it hasn't replaced a game because all of the predecessors that we've mentioned, I would rather play over this game. So I would rather play Race for the Galaxy. Yeah, right. Well, no, it hasn't been replaced. Those games came before it. But I would rather play Lost Cities. I'd rather play San Juan. And I'd rather play Race for the Galaxy before the Galaxy. Though this is great.

I'm not knocking the game that much. It's just the shoulders that it stands on are better than it. Right. I would have to change the composition of the next question to be more like, what are the games that this did not displace? Right. They didn't try it. They tried to stand on its corner, but it didn't take it. That's actually probably a better question to ask because I think it's new enough that if I were to ask, has this been replaced by anything, the answers?

No. That Dave's answer is Rummy. Dave's answer is three card Monty. Yeah. All right. Soundtrack, what music would you want to listen to while playing? And be it Sounds of the Forest. OK. Yeah. Since this theme has come up a few times, I think we probably have the exact same answers as whatever last game we had that was nature-themed. And for me, it's just nature sounds or spa music. OK. Yes. Absolutely, that will work. I forced myself to find a different answer.

And I didn't go with, you know, Vivaldi. I went this time with Mysterious Forest by Frederick Chopin. Oh. All right, is that Chopin making another appearance on our podcaster? Is that his first? I don't remember. I don't know. I think it might be the first appearance. Yeah. And once we do lacrimosa or something like that, we may not make maybe a while before he gets another opportunity. All right. So rating on board game geeks scale of 1 to 10 now, how would you rate for a shuffle?

And Dave, I'm going to have you go last. So Paul? For me, it's an eight. It's an eight, all right? Which is a good score coming from you. But why an eight? Why an eight because I would recommend it and never say no to someone else asking to play it? OK. I had it down as a seven. And I think it could still be climbing. The thing about not liking the end game score, I mean, it doesn't kill the game for me by any stretch of the imagination.

So one of the things about finding something that hasn't aged well or you don't like about the game could be improved upon. You're going to pick something. But this is still a really good game. And seven is a healthy score. And we're still playing it. And I'm looking forward to playing it some more. So Dave, what did you have it down as since you've had the most the largest journey with the game on that front? Well, right now, it's at a six for me. It's a good game.

I'll play if somebody else wants to play. Generally, there's probably another game that I want to play. I think it's a good game that my plays of the game have not really been able to access as well. And probably because I haven't played as much two-player. I think if I spent some time really exploring the two-player game that would probably rise, most of my plays have been on BGA, four-player in person, four and five-player.

So I'm probably doing the game a bit of a disservice that maybe those player counts shouldn't even be on the box like we were saying, but it's a six for me. Like I said, all the games that came before it, they kind of influenced this game. I would rather play those games. So just out of curiosity, what do you rate, Rummy? Rummy, that's an interesting question because I haven't actually sat down to rate it. So Rummy's a different kind of experience, right?

I mean, it's not a game that I'm necessarily playing for the mechanics of the game. It's sitting around and having snacks and visiting usually with family members. Maybe you haven't seen for a while. It always has a different environment. I do quite like Jim Rummy. That might actually be of the Rummies. I might say Jim Rummy's a seven for me. That's just a classic solid game. Mm-hmm. And what would you rate the standard 52-card deck plus two jokers? [LAUGHTER] That might be a 10.

No, that's a great question. That might be a 10, honestly. I think it is. That in a book of oil, I'm ready to go. Right? Yeah. So back to "For Shuffle. " Is it replayable on how soon do you want to revisit the game? Paul, I'm going to let you go last this time. So Dave, I'll let you go first. Look, I say this a lot too much, probably on every episode. But it's a game where if you're going to replay it, or don't bother, don't play this once or twice.

Because, again, it has that learning curve for the deck. It's really not going to start to illuminate, or bloom as a game, and tell you're familiar with the possibilities that are out there. So if you're not going to play it five to 10 times, don't play at once. So yes, it's replayable if it's playable. Yeah. You know, and I'm looking at my notes for this, and I have something similar in that.

Yeah, it's absolutely replayable, especially with the muscle memory about the power combinations and what's possible. And I think you could get the playing time down to 30 minutes, which would be amazing. I mean, this game in a two-player, 30-minute game would be an incredible experience. All right, Paul, bring us home. Yes, I've been playing every week or two. And today's point, it took my wife eight plays before she was able to beat me. Wasn't she surprised when you told her the exact number?

Yeah, she didn't realize she'd played that many times. Some games just take it. It's that sixth player, that seventh play, where the light comes on. I've had this more than you guys, I think, where I've grumbled about a game. And because I trust you guys so much, I'll keep grumbling, but I'll keep trying. And then the light comes on one day, and Russian railroads was won. And I didn't enjoy it, and maybe the fourth or fifth play, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a great game.

And I don't know what it is. And all of a sudden, you're better than a skimp? I don't know, now I'm certainly not. Maybe I won the last one we played, but that's probably it. But yeah. Well, all I can say is I hope that the light turns on for you, because it doesn't always turn on. Yeah. Food chain magnet. The Yunnan. Yeah. Oh, you guys do. You gave it a fair shake. I mean, you've got a lot of plays. And if it hasn't taken by now, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it is either.

All right, and without the third winner card has been drawn. For our next episode, I think we're going to have the same crew, and we're going to go digging for ancient civilizations and their artifacts. So thanks for being available tonight, guys. And goodness, can we get to sleep at a reasonable hour? Spring time will come. All right, thanks. That's a good one. Thank you for listening to "Replayable. " Support for our podcast comes from listeners like you.

You can find us online at replayable.fm, on Twitter as "Replayable FM," and on Instagram as "Replayable FM. " You can also join our team at patreon.com/replayable. Thank you for your support. We welcome your feedback, which is the only way that we are going to get better. You can get in touch with us via email at feedback@replayable.fm. And if you're interested in sponsoring us, then please contact us at sponsors@replayable.fm. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

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