Aspens – A Two-Player Forest Duel

When I first put Aspens on the table, I honestly thought, okay, this looks nice. Forest colours, warm yellows and greens, chunky wooden trees. It feels like something you’d play on a slow Sunday afternoon.

And then we started playing.

Because underneath that soft look, this is a tight two-player area control game. Not aggressive in an obvious way, but the kind where one small placement can ruin your position two turns later and you only realise it when it’s too late.

You and your opponent each grow your own forest across a shared board. The sun gives you trees. The wind limits where you’re allowed to expand. And slowly, space runs out. What surprised me is how quickly you start worrying about being cut off.

If you like positional games and planning ahead, and you don’t mind some dice influence that you can’t fully control, this might be interesting. If you’re expecting a thematic forest adventure… that’s not really what this is.

👥 2 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designers: Neil Edwards & Luke Roberts
🎨 Artwork: Kaitlin Brasfield

🏢 Publisher: Ludivore Games (review copy provided)

Gameplay overview

The goal is simple. Control more spaces than your opponent when the board is full. Once a space is yours, it stays yours. No removing pieces. No take-that. Just claiming land and living with your decisions.

The board is built from seven hex tiles. In the standard setup there are 148 playable spaces. Three water tiles are placed in fixed spots and block those spaces for the entire game. They look like simple blocked spaces, but they really decide how the early game develops.

There are alternative starting layouts in the rulebook, but we mostly played the standard one.

Setup

Each player chooses a tree type and takes three trees from their bag.

Starting with the first player, you take turns placing one tree next to a water tile. Important detail here: you must place one tree next to each of the three water tiles. You can’t put two next to the same one.

After that, each player takes four more trees and distributes them across their three starting spaces. You can stack them however you like. All four on one space. Or spread them out. After this step, you each control three spaces with seven trees in total.

How a turn works

Every turn follows the same structure.

You roll the sun die and the wind die. Both players gain trees based on the sun result. Then the active player plants trees. After that, you check if you created a cascade.

It sounds simple. And rules-wise, it is.

Gaining trees

The sun die shows a number between 2 and 7. For each space you control that has at least that many trees on it, you gain one tree from your bag. Both players do this, even if it’s not their turn. The active player gets one extra tree as a bonus.

So even when you’re waiting, you’re counting stacks. You’re thinking, okay, if it’s a 4 I get two trees, if it’s a 5 I get nothing. You’re always paying attention.

Planting trees

Only the active player places trees.

For every tree you place, you decide how to use it. You can add it to a space you already own, making that stack taller. That improves your chances of producing trees later. The wind doesn’t matter for that.

Or you can expand outward. To do that, the space must be adjacent to one you already control. And it must be in one of three directions allowed by the wind die. The rolled direction, plus the two next to it. So every turn you have exactly three valid directions for expansion.

When you claim a new space, you immediately control it and can expand from there in the same turn. That chaining is important.

You’re allowed to grow from different areas of the board in the same turn. And you never place on water or on a space your opponent already controls.

Also worth mentioning: you don’t have to place everything. You can keep up to five trees in hand for later. We rarely did that, but I can imagine situations where it makes sense.

Cascades

If you close off an area so your opponent can’t reach it anymore, you create what the game calls a cascade. When that happens, you immediately fill that entire enclosed area with one tree per space from your supply. Water tiles can help form the boundary.

These turns can swing the game. Sometimes you see it coming and try to prevent it. Sometimes you realise too late that you just gave away a whole section of the board. That feeling is very real.

End of the game and scoring

The game ends when all playable spaces are filled.

Before counting, you remove extra stacked trees so every space only has one tree on it. Then you count how many spaces each player controls. Whoever has more wins.

In the standard setup the total should add up to 148, which is a useful way to double check if you miscounted.

Artwork and components

We played the deluxe version, which has upgraded components. Gameplay is identical.

On the table, it looks very good. The hex tiles form a large forest shape with varied greens and yellows. It’s easy on the eyes and still readable once the board fills up.

The wooden trees are chunky. One player has pine shapes, the other rounded aspens in autumn colours. Halfway through the game, the board really does look like a small wooden forest growing between you.

The dice are custom and clear. Nothing confusing there.

If you don’t care about how a game looks and only focus on gameplay, the production won’t change your opinion. But it does make it more enjoyable to set up and leave on the table.

Our experience

For us, the game was very easy to teach. I can explain it in about a minute. Roll dice, gain trees, place trees, check enclosed areas. Done.

After a few plays, we started noticing things we completely missed in the first game.

In our early games, we underestimated how important that opening distribution is. Not the placement next to the water, because that’s fixed, but how you divide those four extra trees. If you stack them mostly on one space, you’ll still produce on higher sun rolls. If you spread them out, you’re more likely to gain trees on lower numbers but might miss out on the high ones. It’s basically choosing which rolls you want to rely on. And a few turns later, you can already feel whether that choice worked out.

Around the middle of the game, space starts disappearing quickly. Since ownership is permanent, being cut off hurts. There’s no catch-up mechanism, no stealing back territory. If your opponent blocks a corridor, that’s it. You deal with it.

We also noticed that once someone pulls ahead in territory, it can be hard to reverse. In several games, we could more or less see who was going to win before the final spaces were filled. Not always, but often enough. If you fall behind and don’t get a cascade, recovery is difficult.

The wind can be slightly frustrating too. Most of the time it feels manageable. But occasionally you roll directions that just don’t help your position at all. You can reduce that risk by branching out more, but still, sometimes the wind just doesn’t cooperate. I guess forests don’t get to choose their weather either.

Games took around 30 minutes for us. Often we immediately played again. Not because we were amazed, but because we wanted to try a different approach and see if it worked better.

Our thoughts

So what is Aspens really?

For me, it’s a clean two-player abstract with light dice influence. The dice matter, but they don’t decide everything. They limit your options, and you work around that.

The core decision is simple. Invest in taller stacks for better production, or claim more land before it’s gone. That’s basically the whole game. And honestly, that’s fine. Not every game needs layers and subsystems.

Also, despite the forest theme, this is clearly an abstract game. The trees are beautiful, but mechanically they are just counters that affect probabilities. If someone expects a strong thematic experience, they might be disappointed.

For us, it sits in a good place. It’s quick, focused, and easy to bring to the table. It doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s not revolutionary. It’s not emotional. It’s just a solid two-player game that makes you think a few turns ahead.

And yes, if you lose, you can always blame the wind. I certainly did.

📝 We received a copy of the game from Ludivore Games.