Wouter & Ymke 
There are a lot of board games these days. I mean… more than anyone can realistically keep up with. Every month something new appears with big artwork and promises of interesting mechanics. Most of them blur together after a while. So when River Woods showed up on our table, the first thing we noticed wasn’t the gameplay yet, but the vibe. It just looks friendly.
The game puts you in the role of city dogs who decide to leave the busy streets behind and wander into the countryside. Honestly, that already sounds like a solid life decision. Along the way you meet forest animals who help you explore the woods, collect resources, and complete small objectives.
That’s basically the idea. Walk around the forest, build the map together, grab a few things, and score points along the way. Simple goal. The interesting part comes from how the forest grows while everyone is trying to use it.
👥 2-4 players, ages 14+
⌛ Playing time: 60-75 minutes
📝 Designer: Geoffrey Chia
🎨 Artwork: Nanimonda
🏢 Publisher: Good Spirit Games (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The game starts with a small group of terrain tiles placed in the middle of the table. Each player gets a player board, three action discs numbered 1, 2, and 3, a few wooden pieces, and some cubes for scoring. Everyone also receives two terrain objective cards that stay hidden in their hand.
Next to the map you place a few things that everyone can use during the game. Three terrain tiles are available to pick from, three companion cards are face up, and there are shared objective cards players can try to complete.
Players place their main character piece on one of the starting tiles, and then the game begins.
The game lasts five rounds, and each player takes three turns per round. On your turn you place one of your action discs onto your player board. The number on the disc tells you how many action points you can spend that turn. Each disc can only be used once per round, so the order in which you use them matters more than you might expect.
One common action is placing terrain tiles. Spending 1 action point lets you take a tile from the display and place it next to the existing map. Spending 2 action points lets you stack a tile on top of an empty one. That adds a bit of height to the board and changes how pieces can move around later. One rule that’s easy to miss at first is that you have to place terrain at least once each round, so the forest keeps expanding.
Another option is recruiting companions. These are forest animals who help your dog along the way. The companion cards have different action costs depending on their position in the display. After taking one, you place the matching piece on an empty tile next to your main character. If there isn’t an empty tile next to it, then well… you simply can’t take that action.
Players can also move their pieces across the map. Each step costs one action point and pieces move to adjacent tiles. Movement points can be split between your pieces, which helps with positioning. You can move through spaces where other pieces stand, but you can’t stop there.
When a piece moves onto a tile with a token icon, you may collect that token if your companions allow it. Players can hold up to three tokens, so you sometimes have to replace one if you pick up something new.
At the end of your turn you check if you’ve completed any objectives. Terrain objectives usually care about how your pieces are placed on the map, like being on terrain groups of a certain size. Some objectives are public, others start hidden in your hand and become public once you finish them.
There are also round objectives that require certain combinations of tokens. If you complete one, you place your cube on it and score points. The tokens you used stay with you, so they can help with other objectives later.
Once everyone has taken three turns, the round ends. Players take back their action discs, a new round objective is revealed, and the first player marker moves clockwise.
The game ends after five rounds, when the terrain tiles run out, or when someone somehow completes all available objectives early. Players then count the points from their completed objectives and the highest score wins.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The first thing people notice about this game is the art. The terrain tiles show different parts of the forest painted in a soft watercolor style. When you place them next to each other, the map slowly turns into a colorful patchwork landscape. After a few rounds the table looks like a little forest map that everyone built together.
The tiles are hex shaped and quite solid. The wooden pieces are simple but nice. Each player gets a main character piece with a dog illustration on it, plus a pawn and a cylinder for companions. Nothing fancy, but they’re easy to recognize on the table.
The companion cards might be my favorite part visually. You’ll see animals like squirrels, hedgehogs, rabbits and badgers helping the dogs on their journey. The art style feels a bit like a children’s book, in a good way.
Icons on the player boards and objective cards are mostly clear. After one or two rounds everyone at our table understood what the symbols meant.
Resource tokens are small hex tiles with simple icons. Flowers, berries, tea, mountains. Yes, tea is apparently an important forest resource. I guess even dogs need a nice cup after a long walk.
Overall the presentation works really well. It looks friendly and inviting on the table.
Our Experience
The map starts small but grows quickly. Watching the forest slowly fill the table is honestly one of the nicest parts of the game. Each tile changes the board a little bit, sometimes opening new paths and sometimes making things slightly inconvenient for someone else.
And because everyone adds tiles, the map ends up looking different every game.
For us, this shared map building worked quite well. You’re solving your own puzzle but you’re also shaping the environment everyone uses. Sometimes you help someone without meaning to. Sometimes you accidentally mess up someone’s plan. That’s part of the fun.
The action discs create a small timing puzzle. Each round you have discs with values 1, 2, and 3, and deciding when to use the 3-point turn becomes interesting. Quite often we used smaller turns to set things up and then tried to combine multiple things in the bigger turn.
Movement across the map also becomes a big part of the game. Planning routes to collect the right tokens while still positioning pieces for objectives can feel satisfying when it works. Speaking of objectives, those create little races during the game. Being the first to complete one gives better points, so players sometimes rush a bit.
Companions add some variety with their abilities. Some help convert tokens, others make objectives easier, and some change movement rules. That said, we noticed the abilities are not always equally impactful. A few companions felt very useful while others felt a bit situational.
Players mostly interact in indirect ways. You’re sharing the same map, so terrain placement and movement can affect each other, but it’s not a very confrontational game.
Overall the experience felt like solving a spatial puzzle that slowly develops. The game looks relaxed, but you still have to think about positioning and timing.
Our Thoughts
So what did we think of River Woods after playing it a few times?
For us it sits comfortably in the medium-light strategy space. The rules are not complicated and most players understand the flow fairly quickly.
The action disc system is probably the most interesting part of the design. Because you can only use each disc once per round, deciding when to use them becomes part of the puzzle.
The shared map also gives the game its personality. Watching the forest grow and trying to move efficiently across it makes you think a bit more about where your pieces should actually be standing.
That said, the game stays quite tactical. You often react to what appears rather than planning several rounds ahead.
The companion abilities also felt slightly uneven in our plays. Some gave clear advantages while others didn’t change much. It’s not a big problem, but it’s noticeable.
I think River Woods works best for players who enjoy spatial puzzles and lighter strategy games. If you like building maps together and figuring out how to move around them efficiently, there’s something here. If you prefer heavier planning or long-term strategies, this might feel a bit light.
Still, the game does a good job creating a relaxed experience where players slowly build a landscape together while trying to score points along the way.
For us, River Woods ended up being a pleasant game that works well when you want something thoughtful but not exhausting.
And honestly, any game where a group of dogs decides to leave city life behind and wander through a forest already sounds like a pretty good life lesson.
Maybe the dogs are onto something.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Good Spirit Games.
