Board game review of Tiny Woodys: The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Sweet, sweeter, Tiny Woodys. The cute card game was created at the beginning of the year with the help of almost 200 people who supported crowdfunding on startnext. The players take on the role of one of the six forest animals and try to collect four different Woodys of their kind. Whoever does this first wins the game. But you shouldn't be fooled by the cute artwork. If the other players are in league with the weather, their own plans are quickly thrown into disarray.

The eponymous Woodys are nature spirits. As an owl, magpie, rabbit, wild boar, hedgehog or squirrel, players try to collect four different nature spirits in their own area. Each animal has a specific type of Woody that needs to be collected. The magpie wants to collect glittering minerals or the wild boar wants to collect tasty mushrooms. The first person to have the required number of Woodys in their own collection area and hiding place wins. The role you take on is secret and should remain hidden from the other players for as long as possible by cleverly playing out the Woodys.

Small card game, big annoyance factor

You don't have to learn much to start playing Tiny Woody's. On your own turn you can carry out two of the three possible actions. Doing the same thing twice is not allowed.

The first option is to draw three cards from the current season deck. There are four of these, which are played through gradually. The Woodys are well distributed throughout the seasons, so you can't collect everything you need to win in the spring. At the end of your turn, as long as you have no card effects that increase your hand card limit, you must discard four cards.

The second and third options on the turn are to play a Woody into your own collection area or to move an already played Woody into your own hiding place. There the cards are protected from almost all card effects. If you have two identical cards in the collection area or in the hiding place, they are combined and you can use the card's effect. In this way, the hand card limit can be increased, more cards can be drawn or played, or the number of event cards that can be played per turn can be increased. One-off effects can also be activated in this way. Combined Woodys count as one card.

The event cards are the take-that element of the game. For example, the rain washes away all players' hand cards. Then everyone draws two new cards. With the sun you can choose a card from another player's hand and the lightning destroys a Woody that is in play. These and other weather effects cause unpredictable turns of events, which are often met with little enthusiasm from the other people at the table. By default, one event card may be played per turn.

The game ends as soon as a person has collected at least four different Woodys that belong to their own role.

Conclusion

The game absolutely lives from the super cute artwork on the cards. No matter which card you draw, somehow every new card looks even cuter than the cards you had in your hand up to that point.

Thanks to the simple rules and the well-written instructions (or the rules video), the game can be learned very quickly and you can start playing straight away. Frequent players will have no problems with the three actions and even casual players will understand the game after a few minutes.

Because you're limited to two actions per turn, they can be carried out quickly, as you can usually plan what you want to do next on each other's turns. Over time, this small variance in actions feels a bit monotonous, especially in repeated games.

Even if the playing time is usually less than the specified time period, it can feel like it takes too long. This feeling only increases as the number of people grows. The rules recommend 3 or 4 people as the ideal cast. We can agree with that. There simply isn't enough happening with two people, including with regard to the event cards, and with a full five players the game is too time-consuming for what it offers.

What keeps the game interesting despite the few action options are the event cards with their weather effects. These are actually always nasty for the person who is hit by them. This type of take-that interaction is certainly not suitable for everyone. However, if you get involved, the weather effects in the game offer a welcome change with surprising effects. Rainfall at the right time can snatch the victory that the opponents thought was certain.

Long-term planning is difficult in the game, and not just because of the unpredictable weather effects. The luck of the cards also forces you to come to terms with what you currently have in your hand. To win, combining similar Woodys to use their effects is essential. Anyone who doesn't do the right thing here will lose out. It helps to first build a working mini-engine so that you can then play your own Woodys in just a few moves.

There's nothing wrong with the cards as the only game component. The quality is right. The symbols, texts and effects are also clearly displayed here so that the flow of the game is not disturbed in any way.

Overall is Tiny Woody's a nice card game that doesn't revolutionize the genre, but above all impresses with its outstanding visuals. Frequent gamers won't be able to find it captivating in the long term, but casual gamers and families can take advantage of this with a clear conscience if they can get used to the annoyance factor.

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