Everdell Valley is bustling with activity and celebrating a
new way to build, maintain, and inhabit cities in their now-legendary community.
In Everdell Duo, experience a streamlined version of Everdell that offers four
variations of play. There are competitive and cooperative two-player rules, a solo
or two-player campaign with 15 chapters, and ten cooperative challenges for one
or two players against an artificial opponent. Whether you are a seasoned
Everdell fan or just getting started in this world, this version offers a
compelling new experience with a quicker set-up, lower complexity, smaller box,
and 30-minute game time.
For those who are new to Everdell, you will be placing cute
worker animals to gain resources, which are used to play Construction and
Critter cards to build and populate your city. There are event tiles that
change each game to provide varying goals. Both the cards and goal tiles
achieved each game provide points. In competitive play, the player with the
most points at the end of the game wins! In cooperative play, players work
together, building one city and working towards common goals that they must
achieve to win.
As an Everdell fan who has played the parent game for
several years, I was impressed with this version’s concise rule set and its lower
complexity with still a wide variety of experiences between games, due to its
80 construction/critter cards, 32 different event tiles, and generous resource
generation opportunities.
This version plays similarly to Everdell with some key
differences:
- Rounds are still tracked as seasons but use counter token movements, and players end each season together. The three action options for a turn are: place a worker, play a card, or gain a card, with only one action allowed per turn. There are still opportunities for cascading actions that branch from one of the three key actions.
- Game play is limited to one or two players and plays in a short timespan of 30 minutes, with four different game modes as explained above.
- Critter cards are not paired with specific construction cards as in Everdell. To play a critter for free, occupied tokens (which may be gained through game actions) can be used once per card type/color and placed on any construction of that type to play a critter of that color for free.
- There is no limit to the number of cards you may keep in your hand.
Having played only the two-player competitive mode thus far, I am looking forward to diving into some solo and campaign experiences. So far, I am impressed and can enthusiastically recommend this version. ~Marsha