Forests of Pangaia

Sent out by the goddess Gaia, your task is to grow trees and use them to complete Rituals in honor of mother nature.

2-4 players, ages 14+
Playing time: 40-60 minutes
Designer: Thomas Franken

Publisher: Pangaia Games
https://www.pangaia.games/

Forests of Pangaia is now live on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pangaia/forests-of-pangaia/

On your turn, you’ll go through the following three phases:
First you grow trees: each space with a majority of your seeds allows you to grow one of your trees, with every player present gaining a resource matching the land type.
In the second phase you’ll take one of the following actions with your Spirit:
– Place your Spirit Pawn on an empty lake and plant new seeds on an adjacent space
– Gather 1 resource of your choice
– Or Pray: Gain Life Points by completing a Ritual, after which your used trees will (partially) decay and leave new seeds to grow in the next round.

In the final phase you can spend resources to add treetops to your trees: these will help you to score more points when completing Peak Rituals, but you’ll also gain resources when players use those trees when completing their Rituals. Removing treetops from your player board also unlock additional seeds for you to use, and some of the emptied spaces will even earn you endgame points.

The end of the game is triggered when there are no open Ritual Cards left, and players calculate their score by tallying up the points of their Life Tokens, treetop slots and additionally from the achievements awarded at the game end. The player with the highest score is the winner and gains the blessing of Gaia!

Forests of Pangaia is a game that has everything it takes to become a modern classic: rules that are easy to grasp, smooth gameplay and appealing to both casual and expert players. I’m very impressed by the design and the way the different mechanisms flow together in a natural way. Searching the right balance between whether or not fulfilling a ritual now or later, with the risk of another playing gaining benefit from your trees feels very challenging and with the way the rituals come up, each game will be different.

As you can see for yourself in the pictures, Forest of Pangaia is a game that comes with a great table presence! This preview copy is already a top notch production so I really can’t wait to see the final game with the unlocked stretch goals. The game is still on Kickstarter at this moment so I highly recommend you to check it out before it’s too late!