We review the board game Everdell! Gather resources to develop a harmonious village in the whimsical and magical world of Everdell. From my first play, I just couldn’t get enough of the beautiful world building found in this board game. Even better still, Everdell provides a highly replayable, satisfying game experience that keeps us coming back.

Everdell game review. Everdell Game w

How Do You Play Everdell?

In Everdell, players will attempt to build a bustling city filled with critters and structures. The game is played out over four rounds, or seasons. 

Players each begin with two workers and a hand of cards. They’ll use their workers to gather the resources they need to play the cards in their hand. 

On your turn you can either place a worker on one of the board locations or play a card. 

Cards you play sit in front of you in your tableau. You are able to fill your tableau with up to 15 construction and critter cards. These cards each provide you with unique abilities, resources, or victory points. 

Some cards when constructed allow you to construct a specific, related card for free.

When a player cannot or chooses not to play a worker or card on their turn, they then prepare for the next season. Workers played by that player are returned to them, new workers are added, and any season effects take place. 

Players advance to the next season on their own and do not force other players into the next round. Every player plays through each season until the cannot or choose not to take any more actions during that season. 

At the end of the game, the player who has the city with the most points wins.

What Do We Think?

I was completely charmed by each element of Everdell. From the world design to the game play, Everdell is a delight to play. 

I love how it seamlessly combines many different types of game mechanisms into a cohesive play experience. Everdell is an excellent choice for families that want to dive into more complicated games. 

This is a tight and challenging experience, but not overwhelming. I absolutely love how limited your actions are in the beginning. With only two workers to begin with, you have to think strategically about how to use them to maximize that first turn. 

Even still, I’m always surprised each game with how far you can stretch the resources and actions you take with those two workers. There are plenty of options on the board so even if an opponent chooses a location that you wanted, there are many other ways to get the resources you need. 

As a contrast to the beginning of the game, I love how much Everdell gets rolling towards the end. That final turn with all your workers feels fantastic. Then the game is over leaving you wanting more! I think Everdell takes the perfect amount of time to play. Each game of ours has hovered around 50-70 minutes depending on player count. 

Indirect Player Interaction

One of my favorite parts of Everdell is that you are both playing your own game and playing together. In many ways Everdell is full of indirect player interaction. If you place your critter on a space that someone else needed, then you’ve impacted their game. But never do these interactions feel mean or intrusive. Everdell can have a very solitaire feel, but never so much so that you aren’t aware of what other players are doing. There are even ways that you can visit action spaces in an opponents city if they build them. 

I love that you advance on to the next season in your own time. There are no fixed set of rounds that push your game along, you simply take your turns until you cannot or choose not to and then advance to the next season. This is my favorite type of round structure and it works so well in Everdell.

The Evertree

If I were to gripe about anything on Everdell it would be the cardboard tree. This is just purely for table presence. Is the table presence good? Absolutely, is the tree functional? Absolutely not. 

You are supposed to keep objective cards on the tree, along with your critter workers for subsequent seasons. Keeping the critters on the tree isn’t an issue but the cards are completely worthless on the tree. No one can read them. They lay flat and too high from your line of sight to read. Everyone ends up having to pick them up to see what they say and because your focus is mostly on everything happening on the table, the cards are forgotten.

Because of this I’ve taken to placing the cards on the table somewhere all players can see them easily. The tree is fun, but it’s just not practical. Thankfully, Everdell isn’t lacking in beauty. If you chose to not even put the tree up the game is still stunning. I’ve come to anticipate games illustrated by artist Andrew Bosley as much as some of my favorite game designers.

Can Kids Play? 

While not a kid game, Everdell is one that the whole family will undoubtably want to play. However, Everdell may be better suited for older players.

Everdell is a text heavy game. There is an extensive amount of text on each card and the board that players will have to read throughout the game. If you have any emerging readers, this game is going to be a struggle for them to comprehend without a large amount of adult translation.

I think Everdell would be a great fit for kids in that 10-13 age range. The game is challenging, but it never feels punishing. I’d recommend that kids have a little bit of board game experience or confidence under their belts for best results, but Everdell is the type of game that I think players of all ages could fall in love with as one of their first board games.

Everdell Game Review Summary

Everdell is an excellent board game full of immersive world building and satisfying game play. It is both challenging and delighting to work through each season, filling your city full with critters and structures.. This board game is excellent for players looking to challenge themselves with more medium weight board games.

Everdell is a beautiful game you’ll love looking at on your table. All the better, it’s highly replayable so you’ll want to get it out to play again and again. 

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You May Enjoy Everdell if you:

• Love Nature Themed Games
• Like the game Wingspan
• Prefer games with indirect player interaction

You May Not Enjoy Everdell if you:

• Prefer to play lighter games
• Are easily overwhelmed when presented with a lot of options

Game Info:
Title: Everdell
Players: 1-4 Players
Designer: James A. Wilson
Artist: Andrew Bosley, Dann May
Publisher: Starling Games

A special thank you to our friends at Starling Games for sending a copy of Everdell for review. As always our thoughts and opinions are our own.

Everdell game review

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