You’ll win if there are ever zero gems remaining in the forest (only possible in the second and third rounds). You then shuffle all of the cards and start a new round. Plus, you only see 23 of the 30 cards each round – the 22 that are dealt and the one decree card – so you usually won’t know for sure what your teammate has.Īt the end of each round, more gems are added to the board and a forest token is placed on one end of the path. All of the tricks are put in a face-down discard pile, though, so it can be tough to remember the cards that have been played. You can’t talk about the cards that you have in your hands, so you have to deduce what the other player has based on what’s in your hand and the cards that have already been played. Some activate as soon as you play them and others activate at the end of the turn. If the Team Tracker would move beyond the path, you have to place a forest token on the last empty space on that end of the path, making the path shorter (that’s a bad thing).Įvery odd-numbered card has a special ability that will change the rules in some way, such as the Musician’s ability that lets you choose which direction to move the tracker, and the Gazelle’s ability that lets you ignore the movement (paw print) value on one of the two cards. If there are any gems next to the space where the Team Tracker lands, you collect one of them. The Team Tracker moves towards the winner of the trick by the number of total paw prints shown on the two cards. Otherwise, the winner of the trick is the player with the highest valued card in the lead suit. If the second player doesn’t have a card in the lead suit and plays a card in the trump suit, they win the trick. The other player has to match that lead suit if they can, but if they can’t, they can play any other card in their hand.
![the fox in the forest the fox in the forest](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/red-fox-cubs-at-the-edge-of-a-forest-james-warwick.jpg)
The winner of each trick “leads” and gets to play the first card of the new trick. The paw prints represent how far you’re going to move along the path. There are three suits in the game, 10 numbers (1-10) in each suit, and zero to three paw prints on each card. There are three things to pay attention to on the cards: the suits, the numbers, and the paw prints.
![the fox in the forest the fox in the forest](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/rare-grey-fox-on-alert-in-the-forest-inspired-nature-photography-by-shelley-myke.jpg)
There are 11 turns (tricks) in each round, and the Team Tracker token moves along the path towards the winner of each trick. During each round, both players are dealt 11 cards and one “decree” card is put off to the side, representing the trump suit for the round. In The Fox in the Forest Duet, you have three rounds to pick up all of the gems in the forest. In this card game you’re attempting to work together to move through the forest and pick up all of the gems without getting lost.
![the fox in the forest the fox in the forest](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/forest-fox-romeo-andrei-cana.jpg)
The Fox in the Forest Duet is a two-player cooperative trick-taking game co-published by Foxtrot Games and Renegade Game Studios. We were sent a copy of this game by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This The Fox in the Forest Duet review was made after playing the game 16 times.