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Imagine walking through a forest at night. Mushrooms are glowing, feathers are sparkling in the trees, and foxes in cloaks are wandering about casting spells. That is the world of Nocturne. You step into the role of a fox mystic, gathering magical bits and pieces. They score in two ways at once: you can collect them in sets for points and also use their symbols to brew concoctions for extra rewards. Of course, not everything you pick up is good for you. The cursed treasure chests look tempting but will lose you points in the end.
It sounds straightforward on paper, but the way it plays at the table is more of a puzzle of timing and positioning, with just enough player interaction to make it sharp without ever turning into a shouting match.
👥 1-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 30-45 minutes
📝 Designers: David Iezzi
🎨 Artwork: Beth Sobel
🏢 Publisher: White Goblin Games (Dutch version, review copy provided) Originally published by Flatout Games.
How the Game Works
The night is split in two halves, twilight and moonlight. At the start of each round, the forest is set up with a grid of tiles. To claim one, you place a numbered spell token on it. If another player wants to fight you for it, they must place a higher number on a tile next to yours. If they cannot, they pass. Once everyone else has dropped out, the highest number wins.
The very first spell of each round has to be your lowest-value token. After that, you can play any of your remaining ones. Whoever wins a tile leaves their winning token facedown on the grid until the round ends. That token marks control and matters later for goals. Everyone else takes their tokens back, and each of those players may choose to send one of them to the forest sprite board. That board becomes a sort of queue for bonus tiles at the end of the round. It is worth noting that only players who lost can do this. The winner does not get the option.
The adjacency rule is what makes things interesting. Once you win a tile, your next starting spell has to go next to it. This creates chains of control through the forest, often cutting people off or boxing yourself in without realising. Sometimes you manage a corner cast that guarantees you the next tile without contest. Other times you find yourself in a spot where you cannot place your next starting spell at all. When that happens, the role of starting player passes to the next person, who then gets to begin fresh on any open tile in the forest.
At the end of twilight, the forest sprite board is resolved. Players take tiles in order depending on where their tokens ended up. Shadow spell tokens are also handed out to anyone who still had unused tokens, but they then have to discard their lowest ones before the moonlight round begins. New goals are revealed, the forest is reset, and play continues.
The moonlight round plays in the same way as twilight, but at the very end players also assign mirror stones. These let you copy the points of one of your tiles for scoring, though they don’t copy its symbols for concoctions.
When the night ends, you add up points from sets, concoctions, twilight and moonlight goals, leftover tokens, and mirror stones. Then cursed treasure chests quietly take away a point each. Whoever has the most points wins the night.
Design, Artwork, and Components
Nocturne is one of those games where you stop for a moment just to look at it on the table. The art by Beth Sobel makes everything glow. Feathers shine with gold, mushrooms light up in rich colours, herbs look like they have been taken from an old sketchbook, and the eggs are painted in strange pinks and whites that make them look both fragile and magical. Even the skulls are strangely beautiful.
Some tiles are enchanted and carry two symbols. They are extra useful for concoctions, but they still count as just one tile for sets. That makes them powerful, but not in a way that breaks the balance.
The fox mystic character cards are full of personality, each dressed in robes that match their style. The spell tokens are wooden discs, clear and sturdy, and the forest sprite board ties everything together with glowing fungi and little sparks of light.
When everything is laid out, the board looks like a patchwork of moonlit objects. It is easy to read during play, but it also feels like you are puzzling over something alive and shifting.
Our Experience
At the start of the twilight round the forest feels wide open. Everyone drops their first tokens and begins carving little paths through the grid, chasing early goals or setting up their first sets. But that freedom doesn’t last long. Once the adjacency chains begin to form, the board starts to close in and every placement matters more. The key decisions were always about timing. Do you use a high-value spell now to secure that mushroom, or do you risk waiting?
The forest sprite board was a pleasant surprise. At first it seemed like a consolation prize for losing, but in practice it gave losing tokens a sense of purpose. You could set yourself up for valuable tiles later, which made the choice of what to send there quite tense.
Most of the drama came from adjacency. Blocking a rival’s path, setting up a corner cast, or managing to sneak into a space that others could not contest created satisfying little moments. It never felt aggressive, but the competition was always there in the background.
By the moonlight round, things had sharpened. Everyone had clearer goals, concoctions were within reach, and the forest felt much busier. The new shadow spells gave us a little extra push, stronger tokens that changed the balance just enough to keep the second half from feeling like a repeat of the first. The final scoring swung back and forth, depending on who had balanced sets, concoctions, and goals most effectively.
It is not a game of dramatic table talk or take-that moments. It is more of a puzzle that plays out in silence, with each small decision adding up. And those little moments of frustration, like realising you have boxed yourself in, only make you want to try again to see if you can play more cleverly next time.
Our Thoughts
For us, Nocturne often had us quietly thinking one moment and nervously second-guessing ourselves the next. It is a thoughtful puzzle for players who like planning ahead but are happy to adapt when the forest shifts around them. It works best with three or four players, when the board feels contested and every move carries weight. At two players it is still good, but more open and forgiving.
There is plenty of variety. The shifting goals, concoctions, and layouts kept each game feeling different. And if you want more, there are solo rules, family rules, scenarios and achievements.
It does have its quirks. The adjacency rules can sometimes leave you stuck, which can feel frustrating in the moment. And if you are looking for heavy negotiation or big social interaction, this game may feel a bit too quiet. But for us, that underlying tension was part of the charm.
It reminded us of other titles like Cascadia and Calico, where simple rules hide surprising depth. Nocturne does its own thing though, mixing set collection, bidding, and adjacency in a way that feels unique.
What we enjoyed most in Nocturne wasn’t the final tally of points on the scorepad, but the way every choice shaped what came next. Placing a token often felt like opening one door and quietly closing another. The game rewards careful timing, yet even when you think you’ve planned everything neatly, the forest has a way of surprising you. That mix of control and uncertainty kept us leaning in, wanting to see how things would turn out, and afterwards we found ourselves talking more about the choices we had made than the numbers we wrote down.
That’s why we’d recommend Nocturne to players who enjoy games that quietly get under your skin. The challenge lies less in understanding the rules and more in judging the right moment to act. It is a design that makes you reflect on your choices afterwards, and that is always a good sign. In our case, it left us smiling at the odd mix of things that earned us points: mushrooms, feathers, eggs and, yes, the occasional skull.
📝 We received a copy of the game from White Goblin Games.
