Leaf

Weird City Games and designer Tim Eisner were on hand at SHUX demoing their newest game Leaf. Players control the wind guiding leaves to the forest floor in a board game that creates a beautiful table display. Leaf is still active on Kickstarter, so the following photos feature prototype components.

On your turn, players play a leaf card from their hand and place the matching leaf type on the forest floor from the supply.

Each leaf type is available in multiple colors. The color of the leaf you place can be important, as it opens up actions of that type for your opponents.

When a leaf is placed, it gives the player actions for each point the placed leaf touches. Green leaves give players more leaf cards, orange give animal cards, brown moves the player’s squirrel up the tree, yellow earns sun tokens, and red grows mushrooms.

Here the brown leaf was placed, earning two green actions and two orange actions. The player received two leaf cards from the deck and had their choice of two animals from the forest board.

Animals score in groups once placed into your Winter Den. Animals with acorns are always worth taking as they score 1 point regardless if they are added to your Winter Den or not. Animals will hibernate in your Winter Den when the black token crosses the marked Frost lines. The largest group of animals in your forest is then placed under your player board to score at the end of the game.

If a Frost occurred here, my crows would hibernate and score 3 points for a set of 2 animals.

Moving your squirrel up the tree with the brown leaf action earns you various bonuses including leaf cards, sun tokens, and acorns, which are essentially points. The highest two players at the end of the game will earn some bonus points.

When players place leaves, the players with the largest mushroom on the connected leaves earn extra sun tokens. These are spent to advance the sun marker on the forest board, triggering Frosts and the end of the game. Mushrooms also score points in groups on leaves with connected tips. Groups of 3 mushrooms are optimal.

There is a simple elegance to the flow of the game in Leaf, with all the actions laid out clearly on player boards. Perfect for playing in the Autumn months. As the game progresses, the forest floor will become a colorful formation of leaves.