Weird City Games: Canopy - Card Game

Product Information

But beware of threats such as drought, fire, and disease, as they can destroy your efforts in a heartbeat!

plant cards, that give you points depending on how many of the same you have (some give points only for odd numbers, others if you have only 2 and so on), Sometimes you need to bring it all, the GC Deep Space is the transportation solution for you. With it’s blend of capacity and features the GC Deep Space can get your games to that gaming party in less than fourteen parsecs, or is it twelve? Need to bring those pesky big box games to game night? Or maybe you just need to bring your whole set of pandemic games, the GC Deep Space has the space to get the job done. In this, Canopy is reminiscent of a much older auction game called Ra which tempts players with an ever-growing lot of both good and bad effects. It has a delicious tension between bidding for the mix of effects or watching them grow, and Canopy replicates that very well. Each card on each pile winds the tension up just that bit more as you wonder whether to take it now or risk leaving it to your opponent, a tension that’s increased because each added card is unknown. It might have pushed the pile into must-have territory or it may not. But by the time you know, it could be too late. Canopy’s drafting concept is unusual and effective. Play is fast as you inspect each pile, assess it, and move on. But within that rapid action, there’s a wealth of interesting decisions to make. There are obvious times when you want a pile because it benefits the forest you’re trying to build, but there’s also the temptation to take a pile just to deny it to your opponent. However, if you do that, will some of the cards impact your own tableau for the worse?The game is played over three "seasons" or rounds and the round ends when the draw pile is emptied. This triggers a scoring round where points are awarded for various plants gathered in that round, natural disasters such as fire and disease may be triggered. Points are awarded for trees that have had a canopy placed on them. There are other bonus points for the player with the tallest trees. All wildlife and uncompleted trees remain for the next round, but all flora cards are discarded. Wildlife cards are scored at the end of the game. animal cards, that give points (and bonus points for mating pairs) and also have special abilities, The game is played over three “seasons” or rounds and the round ends when the draw pile is emptied. This triggers a scoring round where points are awarded for various plants gathered in that round, natural disasters such as fire and disease may be triggered. Points are awarded for trees that have had a canopy placed on them. There are other bonus points for the player with the tallest trees. All wildlife and uncompleted trees remain for the next round, but all flora cards are discarded. Wildlife cards are scored at the end of the game. The two primary types of cards being drafted are the plant and animal cards. There is a huge variety of each type and brings unique benefits and set scoring goals that really contribute to the charm of the game. Certain plant cards provide scoring bonuses for sets, but collecting too many may actually result in a loss of points. Animals usually score the most in pairs, but each animal also provides a residual benefit you can use each season to benefit your search.

It’s simple in the way that you can’t make a wrong move – you can legally take any pile and add it to your area. This makes it great to play against kids – our 5yo loved it.

$169

And that sums up Canopy fairly accurately, I’d conclude. It’s good as an entry-level 2-player card-drafting board game. Already at the beginning, we run into Canopy’s strongest attribute: appearance. The artwork from Vincent Dutrait did not disappoint. It’s nice I can play Canopy against my 5yo – she can play adequately. But that’s also a negative for the game – too often the optimal play is just taking the largest pile. More cards usually equal more points. Negative cards remove other cards from your forest: disease kills animals, for example. But they’re not always bad news. If you can get enough disease cards, it spreads, sparing some of your animals and infecting other players. Fire destroys plant cards but that can help you get rid of bad cards like that third Bromelia, and it also encourages seeds to grow. Gameplay - is it any good? When you don’t feel like setting up 7 Wonders: Duel or you play against someone with less gaming experience, Canopy is a great choice. Easy to play, excellent for new gamers or kids

There are also paper bags to store tokens, although I found that a plastic bag, that I had lying around, works better after all. But still, 10 points for the effort. Despite the shortcomings I’ve mentioned, Canopy is not a bad game. I had a lot of fun playing, particularly against my daughter. She loved the rainforest theme and we both loved that she could play with no problems. Nurture an entire ecosystem of flora and fauna in Canopy, a two-player board game from Tim Eisner - the maker of fairy-tale building game The Grimm Forest. Welcome to the tropical rainforest, the richest ecosystem on the planet! Rain, sunlight, tall trees, lush vegetation, and free-roaming wildlife all work in harmony to create the most prosperous rainforest around.

Introducing the official Dice Tower Board Game Bag

However, players will have to be cautious as there are cards that can cause a number of disasters to spring up in their rainforest. From raging fires, terrible diseases and unrelenting drought, these cards reduce the scoring potential of a player’s tableau - so must be taken at the player’s own risk. If you take a pile, you must take all of the cards in it and add them to your tableau in front of you. There are: A rainforest is a wonderful place. The balance, symbiosis and mutualism is a fantastic ecosystem that works together to create a bountiful world full of lush green plants, large towering trees and a multitude of wildlife. I know that rainforest-cutting is a global issue, and if Canopy spreads this awareness among people, it’s a step in the right direction. This is how your forest might look like. Canopy does require a fair amount of table space. Point (Bromelia) Salad On your turn, you will go through three piles of cards, deciding whether to take all of the cards from a pile or skip it and see the next. If you skip a pile, a card will be added to it, so eventually, the piles will have a different number of cards on them.

Whichever player scores the largest total points within their ecosystem becomes the winner of Canopy. And against an experienced player, some finer nuances show up. You’ve got to remember which cards are in the piles, so you don’t give a useful card to your opponent and there are take-that cards you have to be wary of. It’s not chess, but it’s enough to keep you occupied. Educational and Inspiring And that’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s about choosing which pile to take, taking into account what is on offer, and what do players have in front of them. A few of the basic cards. Advanced Variant and AbilitiesThe only “out of ordinary” in the base game are the special abilities that some animals have (peek at a pile, add 1 card to each pile, discard a card, and so on), which is a nice change of pace, although some abilities are more useful than others. The same goes for the Shifting Seasons Variant, which is basically just a mini-rule that is active just for one season. These also suffer from being very situational and often the conditions for them are not even met the whole season. These cards are very situational (i.e. I never felt I need to hide cards or piles – see Pitcher Plant card below) and I did not find them too useful, since you can’t create the situations that would warrant their use. The situations in Canopy are created by the card shuffle, not player actions. From the colourful toucan bird to the emerald boa, each card in Canopy can serve a useful purpose in a player’s rainforest, such as increasing the number of points gained for every type of plant played adjacent to it. Deciding which cards to take and play is a significant element of this tableau building game, with the potential for victory or defeat possibly hinging on a single card. A similar thing should be done with the Shifting season cards. What good is the Mating Season card in the first season, if I’m extremely unlikely to draw a mating pair that early in the game?