It’s another small solo game from Side Room Games, this time For Northwood! a trick taking game. Side Room Games has also helped put out Grove and Orchard, but For Northwood! is a very different game. And the idea of a solo trick taking game is an interesting one. How does this game work, and why might be something that you want to check out. I will say, I mess up the rules at the start, but I fix it fairly quickly in the video. And I’m still slightly under the weather.

For Northwood!

This, like I said is a solo trick-taking game. You try and use your hand of cards as you visit various fiefs to win the favor of the royalty there. It’s a pretty simple system, but not that easy a game to beat, which is what I’m looking for in a solo game.

The interesting thing is that each fief has a target. So for one it might be that you want to win 7 tricks, another is that you want to win 0, that’s the range. But to win at that fief you need to hit that number exactly. That’s the rule that I missed as I tried to get going quickly. But it offers a very big challenge and while you can plan out trick taking, that by itself would just offer a whole lot of luck.

But you always have helpers. Either from the leaders of the fiefs you’ve won the hand at, or from four characters in front of you that you start with. So that offers an interesting variability to the game. You can see me try and use them more in the last game of the two that I played. It’s really about trying use those abilities to setup your hand or get rid of cards in order to able to get that right number of tricks.

The game itself isn’t too long either. I feel like once I was into the swing of the second game I could move along quite quickly. Compared to Grove and Orchard which also come in that size, or slightly smaller boxes, it is slower. But for a solo game, it works well because it’s not too much room and the game play isn’t too long so it works nicely as a filler.

Upcoming Streams

Next Monday I’ll be streaming another solo game. To be determined as to what that game is going to be. I have a new solo train game that I need to learn the rules to. I was hoping to do that before yesterday’s stream but I ran out of time. So that or Skytear Horde might be the game that I look to play. Either way start time is around 8:30 PM Central.

And then next Wednesday, it is down to the planet in ISS Vanguard again. You can click the notification bell for the stream here. That is at 8 PM Central like normal. Join me for some more planetary exploration and maybe a ship phase as well as we’ll see how long we stick on the planet.

And if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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