The successful project ended in the summer of 2020. Kickstarter Campaign for Tim Eisner's 2-player game "Canopy". A year later, the game was released in Germany under the name "Baumkronen" by [Publisher Name]. cosmos publisherIn September 2023, Canopy: Evergreen, the major successor to the successful set-collection game, was launched. The game was released in German for Spiel 2025 – this time by an Austrian publisher. piano With a new name: Woodland. Find out if we liked Woodland in the following review..
Rain falls on the thick branches of the tall, evergreen trees before dripping onto the fertile forest floor. A thriving ecosystem is hidden here, where schools of salmon swim upstream and red foxes roam the undergrowth at dawn. Our task is to cultivate the tallest trees, collect wild plants, and create rich habitats for native animals.
The game is played over three seasons. A season ends as soon as the forest card deck is depleted. The season is then scored. Until then, players take turns. On your turn, you perform three actions in succession: 1. Attract animals, 2. Search gathering points, and 3. Play forest cards.
At the start of our turn, we may attract as many animals from the animal display as we want and are able to. To attract an animal, we need the required amount of food. Once we pay this amount, we can take the animal from the display and place it in front of us. The display is then refilled, and we can attract another animal. Animals have either active or scouting effects. While active animals grant us a unique bonus for the rest of the game, scouting animals provide us with collection tasks for the end of the game, allowing us to earn additional victory points.
The heart of the game
Next, we examine the collection areas. Each player has access to three of them: two located to the left and right between themselves and their opponent, and one in the center of the table. Starting with the leftmost collection area, we come to the core element of the game. We take the cards lying on the first collection area and look at them. Then we must decide whether to keep the cards OR put them back and look at the next pile (in the center).
Woodland heavily emphasizes a set collection mechanic with elements of Push Your Luck. For example, if you look at the first collection space with fewer cards, but they all fit perfectly into the sets you've already collected, you have to carefully consider whether to put the cards back to look at the next pile with twice as many cards. The cards in the next pile might not fit as well or even contain cards with negative effects. Cards that have been put back cannot be taken again during the current turn.
Retains If you reject the cards from the viewed pile, you draw a new card face down from the forest card pile and place it on the now empty collection space. Then, you proceed with the third action: laying out the forest cards. If you decide against the cards, you place them back on the collection space and add another card face down to the cards you just rejected. Next, you may look at the second collection space in the middle and decide whether to keep or discard the cards. If you again decide against this collection space, you may look at the third and final collection space and make your decision.
Laying out and evaluating collected cards
The cards you've chosen are now played in any order. This can be relevant depending on the card's effect. Some provide food to attract animals, others threaten our ecosystem and can have negative effects on us, while still others have set objectives where we have to collect as many cards of that type as possible to score the most victory points at the end of a season. Finally, there are the trees: When we play one of these cards, we may place a root, a trunk, or a treetop on our personal game board, according to the card's description. While roots go directly onto the game board, trunks and treetops are placed on incomplete trees. Trees completed with treetops are scored according to the tree's height and the treetop's value (shown on the card that allows us to place the treetop) and award direct victory points. Furthermore, cleverly placed completed trees can unlock permanent bonuses for our collection objectives.
The end of a season is triggered as soon as all forest cards have been played or a player can no longer make a choice. The season is then scored using the collected cards. In classic Set Collection style, points are awarded based on how often certain symbols have been collected. Afterward, all forest cards are collected and shuffled again, so the next season begins with a completely clean, empty display. Only the played animal cards and everything on the player's personal game board (trees and bonuses) remain.
At the end of the third season, the collected animals are also tallied (animals with victory points, animals of the same species, and the animal cycle). Whoever has the most points wins the game.
Information about woodland – Evergreen & Biodiverse
| Number of players: 1 – 4 Age: from 12 years Playing time: 90 minutes Difficulty: advanced family game, easy connoisseur game Classification: Set Collection, Push Your Luck Author: Tim Eisner Illustrations: Vincent Dutrait Publisher: Piatnik, Weird City Games Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2025 Language: German Cost: 36,95 € |
Conclusion
Woodland – Evergreen & Biodiverse was a lot of fun in our test games. The gameplay was simple and exciting. I'd even say so simple that non-gamers could quickly get the hang of this (advanced) game. Woodland can be learned quickly by playing. This is mainly because all the symbols are quite clear and the text on the cards is easy to understand. Unfortunately, Woodland doesn't have that many different cards. Because there are so few different cards, games can quickly start to feel repetitive. This is a bit of a shame, as Woodland is otherwise a great game that I personally enjoyed a lot.
The process of reviewing and replacing the cards was always particularly exciting. Was that decision worthwhile or not? Could I perhaps let my first pile grow and gamble that my opponent wouldn't take it? These were questions I constantly asked myself. There were many interesting decisions to be made in Woodland. This was also true regarding food: it was usually quite scarce, and you had to carefully consider how much you spent on each animal. Overall, Woodland offers plenty of room for decision-making, but it also relies heavily on gambling and pushing your luck.
The solo mode in Waldland is also quite successful. Here you play against a lone fox who is building his own ecosystem. So you're playing against an automated opponent who is scored slightly differently, but essentially acts like a human player. That's great! The solo games were also very exciting.
Purely in terms of the quality of the game components, Waldland is top-notch. The box has a cardboard insert in which the components fit perfectly. It fills the entire box so completely that nothing can rattle around. Fantastic! This is how all games should be packaged! There's not much to criticize about the rest of the game components either. Only the tree tiles have a high potential to break due to constant assembly and disassembly.
In summary, I quite enjoyed Waldland. I had a lot of fun with the game, both solo and with my testers. However, I was bothered by the fact that after a few games, you've pretty much seen it all, and each game feels very similar. Nevertheless, I would still recommend it. Everyone should play Waldland at least once, because it's definitely fun and exciting!
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