Foraging is a unique subject. On the one hand, it seems harmless, biological and can even be sustainable. After all, the most beautiful and delicious products grow directly in mother nature. Therefore, it does not seem wrong to just pick some nice berries, beautiful edible flowers or mushrooms for a delicious dish. No countless shipping containers to supply the supermarket and no pesticides. However, in many places foraging is discouraged or even forbidden (especially here in the Netherlands) and besides that, many flower and plant species are endangered, just like animal species. By simply picking or gathering, you can disturb nature and cause ecological damage. In addition, as an inexperienced picker, it can also be very dangerous. Many mushroom species look very similar in appearance, but where soms wild mushrooms are a tasty snack, some mushrooms are a dish to die for… When picking wild mushrooms, stick to the rules, consult carefully what you’re going to pick and especially where you’re going to forage, don’t disturb nature and preferably take an expert such as a forester with you. Or pick in a safe environment like in the game Wonder Woods from Blue Orange Games and Geronimo Games. In this game you can also pick the most beautiful fungi, moulds and mushrooms to earn the most points. Will you be the one to pluck victory?
Wonder Woods is a bluffing and deduction game in which players have to decipher, based on a limited amount of information, which mushrooms score the most points and try to gather them. Four different mushrooms (depicted by beautiful wooden pieces) and their corresponding small game boards are laid out on the table. Each mushroom also has its own allocated card with points in increasing order. These cards are shuffled and each mushroom is assigned a hidden card. These are the points that this mushroom is worth. Each player receives baskets in his or her chosen colour and also a quantity of cards consisting of the point cards of the mushrooms that have been left over. Based on these cards, players already know which points certain mushrooms lack.
Players now take turns picking mushrooms. They place one or more baskets next to a mushroom in order to pick a mushroom. Players must always place one more basket than a previous number of baskets. When no player can place more baskets, the round is over. For each mushroom, the player who placed the most baskets in his or her colour receives an extra mushroom. After the end of a round, before the start of the next round, players can choose to turn over one of their cards. This may give the other players valuable information, but as a reward, the player may add an extra basket to his or her arsenal. An important strategic choice.
Wonder Woods is a very short game with a healthy dose of bluff, luck and deduction. Players try to discover which mushrooms are probably worth the most based on the actions of other players and the information they have. This can lead to hilarious situations when all players confidently choose a certain mushroom that later turns out to be worth very little. Do you bet everything on red and white dots or do you spread your chances like a real fungus?
