Crowdfunding preview: Smallfolk from Roc Nest Games

A few days ago, Kickstarter with Smallfolk A game that particularly shines with its sweet charm and beautiful illustrations. It advertises itself as a relaxing tableau builder in which you immerse yourself in the legends and myths of Greek, Japanese, Arabic, and Celtic cultures. Publisher Roc Nest Games kindly provided us with a prototype. Find out how relaxing the game is and whether it's fun in the following review. Crowdfunding preview.

Note: We received the game prototype from Roc Nest Games for preview purposes. The final product may therefore still contain various changes.

In Smallfolk, we travel through a world of folklore, collecting stories from all over the world to retell. Legendary heroes travel alongside us, each with a unique and powerful ability. Players take turns collecting resources, playing story cards, and earning victory points. If the supply of victory points in the center of the board is exhausted, the game ends at the end of the round, and the player with the most victory points wins.

This brief overview almost completely explains Smallfolk. Essentially, we collect resources and use them to play story cards. Each of these cards represents a fairy tale or legend from Arabian, Celtic, Greek, or Japanese mythology and possesses abilities that generally either provide us with additional resources, award victory points, or allow us to draw additional cards. By managing our resources well and skillfully playing cards and activating their effects, we can generate more and more victory points and ultimately win the game.

Simple round structure

A round is quite simple: On our turn, we can choose one of three possible actions: Discover, Journey, or Quest. Finally, we check whether we've made one of our played story cards happy—more on that later—and replenish the deck of cards.

When we discover, we simply play a story card from our hand and pay the required resources. Each resource card has an effect that can be activated at different times. Cards with an instant ability activate their ability when the card is played. The other two abilities—exhaust and gather—are triggered during the travel action under certain conditions.

Traveling through the world of Smallfolk

When traveling, we move our playing piece one space on the board and receive the bonus for that space. We can then choose to take any card from the display or apply the exhaustion effect of a previously played story card. Once exhausted, the card must be reactivated to use the exhaustion effect again.

When traveling, we can also choose to first take a card from the display or activate an exhaustion effect and then move around the game board to receive the bonus from the corresponding space. For example, we can first activate an exhaustion effect and then reactivate it with the bonus from the campfire space. The campfire space also activates the gathering effect of story cards. The remaining spaces provide bonuses such as victory points, cards, resources, or new heroes.

The people need heroes

The third action we can perform is to seek out a hero. Heroes possess a unique, powerful ability that can usually only be used once per game. Used at the right time, heroes can provide a significant boost toward victory.

After performing one of the three possible actions, you check whether you've made one of your story cards "happy." To make cards happy, you must collect cards with certain symbols. Once you've done this, you receive a small one-time bonus in the form of resources, cards, or victory points.

At the end of the game, the collected victory points and the points on the cards played are added together. The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the number of lucky history cards counts.

Conclusion & Kickstarter

Small folk is a truly enjoyable, relaxing card-collecting game in which you try to manage your resources as cleverly as possible and combine cards so that they complement each other. You don't have to think too hard, but that doesn't mean the game is entirely without tactics. You do have to carefully consider when to perform which action or card. Resources can also run out quickly if you don't plan well in advance. Nevertheless, Smallfolk is the ideal game for a well-earned evening and is especially fun for two people. You can also enjoy Smallfolk alone or with four players. Our sweet spot, however, is 2-3 people. Here, the length of a game and the variety are ideal.

What can be frustrating is that you can "block" yourself and thus not get more resources as easily, while your opponents run away from you. However, if you're experienced and have played a few games, you'll quickly become aware of the problem and be able to react and counteract it very effectively.

Ultimately, we had a lot of fun with Smallfolk. We were able to play at a relaxed pace, cleverly execute our effects, and enjoy the game's illustrations in peace. The game remains pleasantly simple, so even casual players will enjoy Smallfolk. So, anyone looking for a relaxing game for in-between times with a touch of tactics will definitely be happy with Smallfolk.

Smallfolk is available for just 34 € until October 03, 2025 on KickstarterThe deluxe version, featuring a neoprene display, familiar guest story cards from the board game universe, new heroes, and wooden/acrylic and metal tokens, is available for approximately €69. If you'd like to immortalize yourself in the game, there's also a funding option. Several stretch goals have already been met. Roc Nest Games promises a very special surprise for those who raise €100.000 or more. Feel free to check out the campaign if you're interested.

Information about Smallfolk

* = Affiliate link/advertisementAs an Amazon Associate, we earn money from qualifying purchases. If you make a purchase through one of the links, we receive a portion of the purchase price as commission. This doesn't cost you anything extra, but it helps support our website. Last updated on September 12.05.2026, XNUMX / Affiliate links / Images from the Amazon Product Advertising API. Images from Amazon PA API.