Evergreen: Giant Trees and Mushrooms – Playing With Shadows

Evergreen: Giant Trees and Mushrooms is a small expansion with two separate modules, and that already tells you a lot about what it’s trying to do. It doesn’t want to shake the game up or turn Evergreen into something else. It builds a bit more on ideas that were already part of the game.

You get two modules: giant trees and mushrooms. You can play with one, the other, or both at the same time. Each module swaps out one existing power from the base game, so you still play with six powers in total. No extra phases, no side boards, no new scoring moments to remember. The game still flows the same way. You just end up caring a bit more about shadows than before. Which, honestly, feels very on theme.

👥 1-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designer: Hjalmar Hach
🎨 Artwork: Wenyi Geng

🏢 Publisher: Horrible Guild (review copy provided)

Quick recap of the base game

If you’ve played Evergreen, you already know how it flows. Everyone builds their own little planet over four seasons. Spring is long, winter is short, and every season feels tighter than the one before.

Each round, you draft a biome card. That card tells you two things: where you’re allowed to act on your planet, and which power you can use that round. After drafting, everyone plays at the same time. You plant sprouts, grow trees, maybe push something to a big tree if the timing works.

At the end of each season, you score light based on where the sun is and how tall your trees are. Taller trees cast longer shadows, which is both great and terrible, depending on who they’re shading. Then you score your biggest forest, just counting connected trees and bushes. After the last season, biomes score based on fertility and how many big trees you managed to squeeze into them.

How the expansion fits in

Adding one of the modules is simple. You pick a power from the base game to remove, pull all biome cards with that icon out of the deck, and shuffle in the new biome cards from the expansion. Then you cover the old power on your player board with a new token.

That’s it. From that point on, you play Evergreen like you always do. Same drafting, same actions, same scoring moments. The new stuff only changes what happens inside those moments.

Giant trees

The giant trees module adds a new power called super growth. When you use it, you can either do a normal growth action or upgrade one of your big trees into a giant tree, as long as it’s in the biome shown on your card.

Giant trees are height three. That’s the big deal here. They cast a shadow three spaces long, which is a lot in Evergreen terms. When they get hit by light, they score five points. They also count for one extra point in your biggest forest, and at the end of the game they score twice the fertility value of their biome.

So yeah, they’re strong. But they’re also very committed. Once a giant tree is down, it’s shaping that whole lane for the rest of the game. Sometimes that’s exactly what you want. Sometimes you realise two seasons later that you’ve built a very impressive tree that mostly works against you. To be fair, that part already exists in Evergreen. Giant trees just make it louder.

This module also adds biome cards with a duplicate fertility icon. When one of those ends up in the fertility zone, it copies the fertility icons of the card directly below it. Fertility values can jump pretty quickly because of this.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms do the opposite of trees. They don’t want light. They actively avoid it.

The plant mushroom power lets you place a single mushroom on any empty space on your planet. Mushrooms have height zero. They don’t cast shadows, and they don’t block anything.

During light scoring at the end of a season, mushrooms score only if they’re in shadow. A single mushroom in shadow is worth two points. A double mushroom is worth four. If a mushroom is hit by light, it scores nothing. After scoring, every single mushroom that was in shadow upgrades into a double mushroom.

Mushrooms don’t count toward your biggest forest and don’t score for fertility at the end of the game. They live their own quiet little life in the dark. I kind of respect that.

What this means in practice is that mushrooms are fairly predictable. If you can keep them shaded, they’ll pay you back over multiple seasons. If the sun moves and ruins your plan, well… compost happens.

Using both modules together

You can mix both modules into the same game, each replacing a different base power. When you do that, the interaction between them is pretty obvious, in a good way.

Giant trees make shadows longer and more influential. Mushrooms turn those shadows into points. Giant trees often end up creating the shade that mushrooms need, and mushrooms sometimes make you think twice about where you actually want your tallest trees.

Nothing about the structure of the game changes, but the board state feels more layered. You’re no longer just asking whether a tree gets light, but what its shadow means for your mushrooms over the next few seasons.

Look and feel

Visually, the expansion fits right in. If you put it on the table and don’t explain anything, it doesn’t really look like an expansion.

The giant tree pieces are taller and a bit darker than the big trees, which makes them easy to read at a glance. The mushrooms add some warm reds and oranges to the board. Single mushrooms are flat, double mushrooms are chunkier, and you can tell immediately which is which. They sit low, which actually helps sell the idea that they’re doing something different from trees.

The new biome cards and power tokens match the base game perfectly. Icons are clear, nothing feels overloaded, and the player aids do their job without needing a second look every round.

Our experience

Both modules slotted into Evergreen without any friction. Setup took maybe a minute longer, and after a round or two, we stopped thinking of them as “the expansion stuff” and just played.

Giant trees made placement feel heavier. Upgrading a big tree suddenly felt like a real decision, because that one piece now mattered for light, forests, and fertility. Sometimes that was satisfying. Sometimes it was a bit punishing if you misread the sun’s future path. Honestly, that tension fits Evergreen pretty well.

Mushrooms had a different vibe. They felt safer, but also slower. Place one, make sure it stays shaded, score a bit, upgrade, score again later. They don’t explode for points, but they don’t disappear either. They’re like a small, steady side income, assuming the sun doesn’t decide otherwise.

Using both modules together made shadows feel central to the game in a way the base game only hints at. Giant trees created long shade lines, mushrooms rewarded you for using them well, and occasionally fertility spikes made one biome way more important than expected. That last part can feel swingy, especially if someone is already ahead in that biome.

One thing we did notice was a bit more end-of-season checking. Light scoring, then mushroom scoring, then upgrading mushrooms. It’s not hard, but it does add a small pause compared to the very smooth flow of the base game.

Our thoughts

I think this expansion knows exactly what it wants to be. It doesn’t try to fix Evergreen or push it in a new direction. It just digs deeper into height, shadows, and long-term planning.

Giant trees are powerful, but they’re also risky. Mushrooms are reliable, but they won’t win you the game on their own. Together, they offer different ways to score without forcing everyone down the same path.

That said, if you love Evergreen because it’s clean and almost meditative, this expansion might push it slightly out of that comfort zone. There’s a bit more to track, a bit more to think about, and a bit more room for things to snowball.

What I do appreciate is the modular approach. You can add just one module, see how it feels, and stop there. Or you can use both and lean into the shadowy side of forest planning. Either way, it still feels like Evergreen.

📝 We received a copy of the game from Horrible Guild.