Board With Each Other
A podcast that looks at Board Games / Tabletop Gaming through the lens of playing as a couple or with a regular gaming partner. Hosted by Al & Hannah, We review a game each episode.
Board With Each Other
Board with Each Other Bite Size: Episode 1 - Fox in the Forest
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Welcome to Board with Each Other Bite Size! It's an exciting new show (Well, not really NEW) but what's wrong with a bit of hype?
In this spin off series, we have a quick chat about smaller (but no less mighty) games or expansions that we feel deserve a review, but don't really justify one of our monthly deep dives. We don't go through our full scoring criteria, but instead chat about the game and give a neat overall score at the end. In this episode, we chat about the 2-player trick taking romp through the Woods, Fox in the Forest.
We hope you like this new format, which will be on top of our regular monthly deep dive reviews. If you're joining us here for the first time, then we do go much more in depth on a game each and every month - so hope you can join us there.
Hello everybody and thank you for joining us for the first ever episode of Bord with Each Other Bite Size. What is Bord with Each Other Bite Size, I hear you ask? Bord with Each Other Bite Size is a new spin-off podcast from our main monthly content that we produce where we will be looking at much smaller games and expansions that don't really necessitate the deep dive reviews that we put out every month. But as ever, we are a podcast that reviews games, um, looking at them from how they play at two players, so the two-player perspective. So that still will come into how we talk about games in these. But they're likely to be a lot shorter, and we are not going to be going into our full scoring criteria with them. We're just going to talk about the games and we're going to give them an overall score at the end of how we we feel about them. For those of you that like scores, I know I do. Um, but these are likely to be much sort of shorter and snappier and free and easy than the uh long form content. Than the long form content. Um so this is obviously the first one, so we'll see how you how we go. If you are coming to us through this for the first time, there is a wealth of episodes out there on uh the sort of meatier topics and bigger games that go into a lot more detail. Um but we hope you enjoy. So, as ever, I am joined by my co-host and player two, Hannah Kelly.
SPEAKER_01Hi guys.
SPEAKER_00And today we are going to be talking about the trick-taking game Fox in the Forest. So Fox in the Forest is a trick-taking game, as I've just mentioned. If you're not familiar with the concept, basically you have cards off various suits. In Fox of the Forest there are three suits, uh, and you have cards numbered 1 to 11 for each of those suits. And a trick-taking game basically works off a leader playing a card and then uh other players playing a card that follows the suit, and the one with a higher number wins the trick. Fox in the Forest has a number of twists on that format. The most important one is to win the game, you need to accumulate 21 victory points. You accumulate victory points depending on how many tricks you've won at the end of a round. So whenever you win a trick in Fox in the Forest, you you take both cards and you place it down in front of you, so everybody knows how many tricks have been won. With Fox in the Forest, you can there's a concept around being too greedy or too humble, where if you don't win enough tricks or win too many tricks, you basically get zero points and your opponent gets six. So there's a there's a huge push and pull mechanic with trying to make sure that you are winning or losing just enough. The other twist in the mechanics is that every odd numbered card does something when it is played. So for example, threes allow you to change the uh trump suit for that round, replacing it with a card from your hand. Fives allow you to draw a new card and put one from your hand back under the very small deck of cards. Is there any way you can get more cards during a round, basically? And ones allow you to leave the next trick even if you lose the current one. So that's just some examples. And that's pretty much all there is to it. Very, very simple, very easy to pick up, very easy to learn. But there's a lot of tactical depth in the detail, which I am sure we'll get into.
SPEAKER_01I think it's probably worth noting that we're talking about playing Fox in the Forest duet, which is the Forest Duet is a cooperative version of Fox in the Forest.
SPEAKER_00We are playing Fox in the Forest vanilla.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'm looking at the box and it doesn't say duet on it, so I mean that would be a good thing. There's a clue. There's a clue there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, we haven't played Fox in the Forest Duet. That is a co-optive version of this form, again, for two players. That's worth mentioning them. Fox in the Forest is a two-player only game. It is the duel.
SPEAKER_01Um, how long do games take? They're quite quick.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say probably about 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for you to get to your 21 victory points. You have to play like a few hands in order to get to your 21 victory points.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, full few rounds. Um I mean it is variable if you're having a run where you're both sort of winning one or two victory points per round. It could potentially go on for quite a while, but I don't think we've really found that happen. Um but the propensity for it to go on to sort of 40 minutes is there. Um depending. But yeah, it's a quick game to play. It doesn't take up a lot of room. One of the classic could play this on an airplane table, pretty much. Yeah, what are your general thoughts, or what were your first first thoughts on Fox of the Forest?
SPEAKER_01So I have in my lifetime played an awful lot of Uno, and I've also played an awful lot of a game called Shithead, which is something we used to play in college, and this really strikes me as a kind of combination of both of those.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think Shithead is one of those games that I think everybody kind of universally plays, and every every regional area has slightly different rules and a different name for it. And I know growing up in South Africa it was called Crazy Eights. Yeah, that's that's more polite version than we've got. Yeah, it's a more polite version, that's just the kid version. Um but yeah, there's a million variants of this card you play with the standard of this game, should I say, you play with the standard 52 deck of cards, isn't there? And they are elements of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so I think it's kind of encapsulated all of those things. So when I kind of got my teeth into it, um absolutely uh really enjoyed it. A lot of it sort of harkened back to my youth. Um, and I would have to say it probably is definitely my game.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just just full disclosure, Hannah's way better at this than I am.
SPEAKER_01Um I think what I really like about it is it's really fluid and really quick and really easy. Yeah. Um, so there's not a lot of staggered or not a lot of thinking time um to it, and it's just a really nice social opener kind of game.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a lovely game to sort of get the the mental juices flowing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01And sometimes when we don't know what to play, we'll crack this out because we can play it in sort of 20 minutes, half an hour.
SPEAKER_00But it gets your brain going. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean it takes seconds to set up, you know, you get a get the card, shuffle them Dion, you know, that's it. But yeah, I think what I really, really like about this is it's a classic, easy but deep game, I find. There is an awful lot going on in terms of where you can go when you're playing it. I uh for me anyway, I find there's actually quite a lot of tactical choice to make.
SPEAKER_01So you start with 13 cards in your hand, which is an awful lot of cards to have to. It's a big opening hand. Yeah, it's a really big opening hand, which means I think sometimes you don't really necessarily know where to start, and actually you can just get away with chucking down a card and seeing where it goes. Um, you quite like to tease people out on that first go. Um, I am perhaps less fussed about doing that. Um, but I think because of that, it means that you can change your game plan and game play quite easily depending on how the other person reacts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you'd look at the flow of the round almost.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's where this game is so much fun. I really like that concept of flow and ebb and having to see how someone's reacting, kind of keeping a constant track of how many cards you have left, how tight your hand is, versus how many tricks you've won. And it becomes this really You have to become quite socially astute, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a real element of almost bluffing, it's not bluffing, but it's almost like you've got to try and try and tell what the other person's heading towards doing or what they're thinking. And it it can be really challenging sometimes. You think somebody's heading for trying to make you greedy, which is that's probably my favourite mechanic of the game, is trying to make the other person win too many times. I really enjoy that. And when you pull it off, it's really satisfying. And I think when I've taught this to to other people, to new people, you could always do you could almost do that to them the first time because they don't see it coming. They you tell them the rules, but they still don't expect you to consciously lose intentionally to be able to give it away. And there's that really interesting ebb and flow of the lead and the one card of being able to lose but still retain the lead of what gets put down, which can be really powerful when you've got very few cards left, and actually, you know, you're you're having to play trump suits, for example, in order to be able to win rounds.
SPEAKER_01That becomes really powerful, but it's also a really lovely way to I think just steal back control when actually you've gone on a bit of a losing streak and you've got to be a little bit more than a lot.
SPEAKER_00And you are losing control a bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you're losing control a little bit. So having those little mechanics in there, along with being able to change the trump card as well, um, it just it's a really sort of fun addition, I think, to the rules.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And um I think the trump the trump suit thing gets really important later on in the game because obviously when you're towards the end of your hand. Towards the end of the your your your hand. Because obviously um there's only three suits of cards, and when you can't follow suit, you can play a different card, but you can then start using that trump card mechanic, because if your card is in the trump suit and you can play it, you start winning hands unexpectedly. So if you can engineer that happening, you can usually get we have sort of quite a quite a powerful run towards the end of the hand.
SPEAKER_01And I think while you've got quite a element of social social deduction, that's not kind of the phrase I want to use, but that that social element of trying to interpret how someone else is playing and think about what they're doing. There's not a huge amount of table talk unless you want to engineer it that way.
SPEAKER_00No, there's not, but it is also one of those games that if you're quite chill about it, you can be chatting while you play. Um I don't think we're that chill about it. I think I concentrated quite hard because I want to try and beat the final boss, which is you at this.
SPEAKER_01Um so uh again, I think if we're talking about like a first date game or sort of early on in in a relationship, I think it's really lovely because again, you you you can have a little bit of banter if that's what you want in the chat. But it's also not force, and you want to sit there and just you know play your cards, that's also completely cool.
SPEAKER_00And it is quite a relaxed thing. So, you know, if you're sitting, you go somewhere and you have coffee and you're having a chat and you want a bit of a break, you could sort of crack this out and have a bit of a game of it, you know. Not necessarily a date, I'm just talking about you know, it'd be a bit weird to do that on the first day. Um that's how you know she's the one. Um but if in if you are you know a couple and you want to break things up a little bit with you know a game while you're sitting somewhere nice, this is fits in your pocket kind of thing, you know, it's it's fun.
SPEAKER_01Um we often talk about artwork, and what I'll say is I mean, it's that there it's a deck of cards, you can't really get all that excited about it. But there is some quite cutesy artwork on it. You've got foxes and moons and keys and stuff, and it's funny cute.
SPEAKER_00It's kind of it's pretty looking, it does exactly what it needs to do. Yeah, you know. And it's uh there's not much in the package. I mean, you've got 33 cards and you've got some some uh cardboard tokens for your your victory points.
SPEAKER_01I mean, on that note, how much does it cost?
SPEAKER_00Uh it goes from anywhere between ten and fifteen, depending on you know the the the the tides, the shipping forecast, the time of year.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that's interesting because I would have probably pitched it at mm around a tenner, probably not much more than that.
SPEAKER_00I think you'd be hard pressed to find any published board game these days. For under£10, yeah, you don't need to be. And I've seen I've seen smaller packages go for more, like Love Letter, for example, just because they they can before that.
SPEAKER_01Um I'm just out touch with board game prices, then fair enough.
SPEAKER_00I mean, if you're looking at sort of core value of what you get in the box, you're always going to be you're going to have a shorter shrift, the lighter, smaller game you get down, you know, the more you go down on that spectrum. They all seem to set it around that that point.
SPEAKER_01Right, fair enough.
SPEAKER_00Um and I assume a lot of that has to do just with the cost of print runs. There's obviously a base cost that comes from producing a box, producing artwork, what have you. That's not gonna scale some so badly with larger things.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I think while it's a I'm not gonna say a high price point, it's a relatively cheaper price point. Um I will say that there's I I can't ever see myself getting rid of this or selling it. No, it's too it's too fun, too easy, too enjoyable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Takes up no room on the shelf, you know. Why why would I not have this kind of thing now that I've got around?
SPEAKER_01And it's so easy and quick to teach as well. Yeah. Um, so that's that's another big massive bonus. But you know, I absolutely I agree. I don't think I would ever sell this or trade it in.
SPEAKER_00I think on the flip side of that, you know, we always talk about, you know, would this work better with more, etc. You know, that's good. And it's a two-player game, so it's it's a moot point. It's a moose point. However, it's one of those games that would would would be great if it did incorporate more, because it's one of those games that's so easy to teach, and I imagine if there was some more multiplayer, and I'm sure there are more multiplayer versions of Trick Laking games, you know, you think about the crew and stuff like that. It's it's it it's one of those things that like actually if more people could play this, they'd probably have fun too. I know it's a moot point because it's just two players, but I'm surprised they haven't come out with some sort of like more player variant that you can incorporate. So yeah, okay. Well all of that, how would you score Fox in the Forest?
SPEAKER_01What what overall score for So if we're just going for one score, Hannah's random scoring today, I'm gonna score it as seven.
SPEAKER_00A seven, okay.
SPEAKER_01A solid seven. I think it's a really good game. I think it's excellent. Well, it is a two-player game, so I mean Yeah. It's good of two players. It's good of two players. Don't try and play it anymore. Um and I think it's a solid game that deserves to sit on any shelf, really, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would actually give it an eight. I think out of out of the small box games that I've played, I think the only one I prefer is Love Letter, and you can't play that really well with two. So this does fit a very specific niche for me. I I I have I'm sure I'll find others, but of the small box games I've played, this is probably my favourite. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I'm not counting Radlands as a small box game. I prefer Radlands as a like, you know, single, single box, small deck of cards kind of thing. But aside from that, this is probably my favourite.
SPEAKER_01Maybe it's just because I don't have an opponent that challenges me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, possibly, yeah. I try my best, I'll train. One day, one day I'll do a follow-up podcast when I actually beat her, ladies and gentlemen. Don't hold your breath. Right, so that is basically it. Nice, short, sharp, snappy, which is what we intend to do with these. They might get a bit longer depending on the game that we talk about. I know some expansions we might go a bit deeper on, um, because we'll loop back to a larger game as part of that. But thank you.
SPEAKER_01If you like this new format, like let us know. We've got all our socials up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, as always.
SPEAKER_01If it's rubbish, also let us know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, also let us know. We won't bother then. Hopefully, it ties you over, you know, when you're desperately waiting for content on a monthly basis and there's something else for you there. So thank you very, very much for uh joining us. And until next time, be good to each other, have fun, and play lost support games.
