In October 2022, Kickstarter the new game Redwood by Christophe Raimbault, the designer behind Colt Express, which won Game of the Year in 2015. Redwood immediately won over its supporters with its beautiful visuals and incomparable gameplay. The game has now been officially released in Germany. You can find out whether the game is as good as it looks in the following review.
On the edge of a wild landscape, nature-loving photographers travel long distances and show infinite patience to immortalize animals in their natural habitat. In search of harmony, these trailblazers compose magnificent images that depict the wonders they encounter on their wanderings.
Into the Wild
The aim in Redwood is to prove your talent as an animal photographer and create a wonderful panorama that can inspire with its great variety. At the end, everything we capture in our photos counts as harmony points. Whoever collects the most wins. Turn by turn, the active player selects a path template and a photo template at the beginning. Once you touch it, you have to use it. In Redwood, it's all about estimating distances as accurately as possible in order to move around the game board and take photos.
First we move across the game board. To do this we clip the selected path template onto our game piece and position it as we wish, so that the round end of the path template is ideally positioned where we want to position our game piece. Then we take the second game piece and place it as precisely as possible on the round end of the path template to complete our movement. Our original piece is then removed from the game board along with the path template.
The perfect photo
In the next step, we take the photo. To do this, we use the photo template we have chosen and clip it onto the game piece that we have just placed on the playing field. We then try to collect as many objects - animals and plants - as possible under the template, because all objects that are completely covered can be added to our photo at the end. In addition, the orientation of our photo template also plays an important role for the background of our photo. This is determined by where the central axis of the template points.
We then take the photo and place the corresponding background on our panorama. This means that the habitat of the background should fit as closely as possible to an adjacent habitat. It is also possible to line up habitats that do not fit together, but this gives us significantly fewer points at the end of a game.
As a quick example: If the central axis of the photo template ended up pointing at a water habitat and we were able to cover three objects with it, we can use three objects at the end of our turn and add them to our photo with a water background. The number of objects is limited by photo spots depending on the background. If we manage to get more objects than there are photo spots, we have to decide which objects we want to use and which we don't.
Keeping the goals in mind
In addition, after taking the photo, all previously revealed targets are checked. For each target that has been fulfilled, one harmony point is awarded. Round after round, new targets are revealed that are scored in addition to the previously revealed targets. This means that Redwood is given an additional component that must be considered on each turn.
The round then ends and it is the next person's turn. If one person chooses a template that another person used in their last turn, the other person receives a harmony point. The game generally ends after 5 rounds. The number of different animal species, the animals themselves, the panoramic image, the trees and flowers, and the number of suns in our photos are all scored. Minus points are awarded for every empty space on our photos and if too many suns have been photographed.
Different modes provide variety
Redwood comes with three game modes as standard. While the main game can be played with up to three people, games of four are played in a team mode. Here, the two team members play on the game board at the same time and can get in each other's way a little if they don't communicate well enough, because the respective templates must never overlap.
To make it a little more exciting, there is also a difficult game mode in which the photo backgrounds have additional requirements and only certain objects can be placed at photo spots. The points distribution is also slightly different, as we only get points for collections of three different flowers.
There is also a solo mode in Redwood. However, this only presents us with four different scenarios that we have to complete. These are very easy to complete and in the end it's just a matter of getting as many points as possible and beating the developers and authors in their score.
Information about Redwood
| Number of players: 1 – 4 Age: from 10 years Playing time: 45 minutes Difficulty: Family game Long-term motivation: medium Classification: Line of sight, template management Author: Christophe Raimbault Illustrations: Edu Valls Publisher: Huch!, Sit Down! Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2024 Language: German Cost: 79,99 € |
Conclusion
Redwood is a game that I have never played before. It brings a completely new gaming experience to the table, which is somehow reminiscent of tabletop games. Here you have to estimate how far you want to move with your photographer and which lens you need for the photo in order to capture as much as possible. You also have to roughly estimate which template will best suit your goal. That is not so easy. Often millimeters are missing for the perfect snapshot, but that is exactly what makes Redwood so exciting.
If you have planned everything perfectly at the start of a turn and the plan works out, the game is all the more satisfying. But even if it doesn't work out, you're simply blown away by the beautiful art style and the innovative game principle. It's also nice that you're really on your own and have to play tactically cleverly. Of course, your opponent can stand in the way or an animal can move to a different habitat after taking a photo of an opponent, but you usually always have the opportunity to react in some way, because pretty much everything gives you points. That's additional motivation, because there's hardly a round in which you end up without any points.
The rules of Redwood are also short and easy to learn. Even explaining the game takes about 5 minutes. This means you can get into the game quickly. Beginners will also get into the game quickly, as everything is easy to understand and logically structured. Redwood is definitely a perfect game for families who want to play a quick game in the evening. Everything is just right here: feel, appearance, level of difficulty and fun. Those who play a lot might be annoyed that the game wears out quickly, as it offers little variety. The animals only move within a certain range and plants are always found in the same position.
Nevertheless, I personally think that Redwood has the potential to end up on the table again and again, because Redwood is worth playing again and again just for the fresh gameplay.
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