Ludonaute | Living Forest | Board Game | Ages 10+ | 2-4 Players | 40 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

First, place the Circle of Spirits Board in the middle of the table. Sit the Guardian Animal Board next to it, with the fire chits (valued 2, 3 and 4) close by. Place one 2-value fire chit into the centre of the Circle of Spirits Board.

Handily, there are some powerful Guardian Animals with special elements that can help you defeat Onibi. And there are three separate ways that flame thrower can be thwarted. Extinguish the fire – Use your water drop points to extinguish fire tiles that are on the circular spirit board. Turn them facedown next to your forest board Each turn has 3 phases and up to 2 actions to perform. Your main task is to choose the winning way! Phase 1: Guardian Animals You can keep drawing Guardian cards, but if you reveal 3 Guardians with ” solitary” symbols printed on them in a row, you must stop. A “gregarious” or “neutral” symbol will cancel out a solitary symbol. You can use any Lotus tiles you have acquired to discard a card just revealed with a solitary symbol card to enable you to keep drawing if you like.I love the idea that tree spirits can be summoned to help protect the forest and it also means that scared flowers have a far more important role. Previously they seems only to be a tie breaker when more than one player achieved 12 fire tokens or 12 protective trees.

You can only ever take one Tree per action. Across the game you can take two identical Trees if you want (if you want to double up on certain Tree’s element bonuses). Note that you need 12 different Protective Trees to trigger a victory condition. (Not 12 Trees total.) The Guardian Animals reserve is refilled by revealing as many new cards per level as there were cards taken this turn.You can keep drawing Guardian cards, but if you reveal 3 Guardians with “ solitary” symbols printed on them in a row, you must stop. A “gregarious” or “neutral” symbol will cancel out a solitary symbol. You can use any Lotus tiles you have acquired to discard a card just revealed with a solitary symbol card to enable you to keep drawing if you like. In case you don’t have enough symbols to spend, you can always consider the ‘Take 1x Fragment Tile’ action. This is always available. Not the most exciting… But if the timing is right, it could create a mega Help Line for you! Woah-oah! Livin’ On A Flare This is also a lovely production. Living Forest features two nice token holders for all the trees, and the central board and standees match the theme really well. The stand out component though is probably the set of guardian animal cards, which features a whole host of beautifully serene creatures who all emit an element of bio-luminescence. Many of these have cute characteristics and a kind of charm that makes them extremely appealing to look at in detail, and whilst the theme could have applied in space, or a medieval village or more or less anywhere else, the overall forest aesthetic is lovely.

Five new level 2 and five new level 3 Guardian cards have also been added. The level 2 guardians allow you to perform the same basic action twice, while the level 3 allow you to perform a basic action shown on the card in addition to your normal two actions. The cost of these guardians isn’t cheap – level 2 range from 6-10 and the level 3 from 11-15 – but the extra actions could be the difference between just falling short or sneaking over the magic 13 (or 15.) Protect the sacred tree, collect flowers, plant trees and extinguish fires – chose the best tactic for you, all with the help of the Guardian Animals. Be the first to collect 12 Sacred Flowers (these must be visible all at once in your Help Line/Forest Board). This awakens Sanki, the great Guardian of the Forest. Onibi’s going to be in a world of trouble now Sanki’s on the case. There’s one other action though, which is to move your piece on the circular forest board where all the player standees are. Doing so nets you a bonus depending on where you land, either a free action of one of the other types, or a useful fragment, which you can spend during your draw to discard a solitary card. In a clever twist, if you can leap-frog another player piece, you get to steal a victory tile from them, which reduces their progress toward one of the win conditions while increasing yours. However, you also set yourself up to be leap-frogged in turn if that player has enough movement action total and chooses to take it.If your Help Line shows less than 3 solitary symbols (not counting the ones canceled by gregarious symbols), you can then perform 2 different Actions. For example, in your Help Line are 3 solitary symbols and 1 gregarious symbol, then only 2 solitary symbols count and you get 2 Actions. The card and board art matches seamlessly with the base game and I love the addon to your player board explaining the kodama symbols bonuses. Components are of an equally high standard and having a figure for Onibi chasing you around the circle spreading more fire makes it feel like there is a real battle for the forest.