Everdell review: "This is the perfect cozy board game for Fall"

Everdell is a forest-themed city builder that offers quick-to-learn, casual competition in the cozy world of the woodland undergrowth. As a light, Euro-style strategy board game, players rummage for resources, pilfer prime positions, and grow a glorious woodland kingdom to earn points for the top spot. So, why is it often compared to the best board games?

Taking cues from games like Agricola, Everdell pairs deckbuilding, resource management, and worker placement mechanics with light, tableau-style engine building. Delightfully illustrated with critters at work in their adorably practical hollow log constructions, there's oodles of furry friends to discover and employ for their many anthropomorphic talents.

Everdell features & design

• Plan & build your city carefully to earn the most points
• Compete for spots to gain resources & complete goals
• Pair critters with constructions to bolster your workforce on the cheap

The aim of Everdell is to build a thriving woodland city in order to earn the most points. Players take turns every round to make a single action: play a card, place a worker, or prepare for a season. Churning through a deck of critters and constructions, you might play a card from your hand, or straight from the open meadow, into your personal play area by paying its cost in resources.

Speaking of those resources, they are suitably quaint; twigs, resin, pebbles, and berries. To gain them, you simply place a worker on a location. Many locations have limited spaces, though there are other ways to produce resources.

Once you're done, you'll "prepare for the next season" and halt your run each round. This allows you to gain more workers and extra boons for the next round, but you'll be opting out while others play on.

Cards will be either critters or constructions, from humble harvesters and their farms, to kings and their costly castles. Building the right construction allows you to forgo the cost of the corresponding critter, luring them there for free rather than spending precious resources. Each card also has a type that denotes when it activates. Some produce resources immediately, some as the seasons pass, and some only when you place a worker on them. Cards might also reduce construction costs, offer bonus points for achieving goals, or let you repeat basic location actions at a cost.

Building up through the seasons, players work toward their personal card goals, basic events that unlock once you've played a set number of one card type, and special events that require a specific card combo to complete. Once everyone closes up for winter, the player with the most points wins. Ties are broken by counting any events collected, plus remaining resources.

Gameplay

• Anticipate your opponents' next move or have your plans thwarted
• Short games make for tight but plentiful strategies
• Has the potential to get a little samey

As much as the charming woodland aesthetic alludes to it, Everdell isn't a game of harmony. It gets scrappy out here in the wild as players vie for resource spots, particularly in a larger game. Four player games include some powerful extra spaces to alleviate the disappointment that comes with a thwarted strategy, but three player games can be just as cutthroat.

With even completed events needing a deployed worker to claim them, a big part of your strategy is anticipating your opponents' next move and getting in there first. Since their hand is hidden it can be difficult, though the combination of their visible city spread and what's available in the open market can offer clues as to where they're likely to aim. There are also opportunities to exchange resources, swap unwanted cards for resources or points, and even use other player's cities to profit, though these spaces are all limited too.

The game attempts to balance this first player advantage by dealing an extra card to each player in subsequent turn order at the start, but I don't feel it does much to turn the fates since later players are still more subject to the luck of the draw. Essentially, players willing to adapt their strategy on the fly are far more likely to profit.

With point totals remaining obscure there's no overarching panic in knowing exactly how far behind you are. It means despite all the scrapping, the pacing doesn't ramp up too hard. There is a minor tension hike as you head into winter, though you're given plenty of meeple to achieve your goals. It means Everdell is an exceptionally chill game, which leans into the theme far better than the knuckle-whitening finish of something like Spirit Island or Doggerland.

As far as replayability goes, Everdell's random elements see players' cities growing differently every game, with a host of potential goals to keep them driven. While there's certainly a humungous deck to discover the ins and outs of, I imagine the game could get samey after a while. But isn't that what addons are for?

Should you buy Everdell?

Everdell is a charming city builder that shines in its cozy simplicity. With step-by-step instructions, it's quick to learn and easy to teach. And while it doesn't have the strategic depth of some Eurogames, it's far less chaotic and time consuming. The short whip through the seasons encourages thoughtful planning, rather than the mental exertion some Eurogames like to inflict.

I'm more likely to reach for Everdell as a shorter and less strategically intense option for board game night as a result, not to mention to show off the gorgeous 3D tree that makes up part of the board.

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Everdell

The reviewer has owned Everdell for a good stretch of time, so has plenty of experience running it personally. Consequently, they have played it multiple times and with numerous people so can accurately critique its longevity and compare to other products.

To get a better sense of how we test board games, see our guide or visit the full GamesRadar+ reviews policy.

For more tabletop recommendations, why not check out the best family board games or the best 2-player board games?