Personally, I enjoy the thought of the Market since it provides a flexible action location but, in all honesty, I don’t find myself using it very often. I think it would have been more useful if the number of resources you get from each token were slightly different. One token has three twigs on it and a card, but there is already a normal location with three twigs. Sure, that extra card might be good but then the tile swings to the Trade side and that gives my opponent an easy three victory points and two resources if she decides to turn in the three twigs (that she could easily secure from the main board) and a card. A shedload of realistic looking and nicely crafted resources (rolly wooden logs, hard, shiny stones, translucent, golden amber and squishy pink berries) are also placed along the river at their gathering locations, with the effect of both the tactile resources and the huge Evertree put together resulting in a nice sense of height, albeit one that is, unfortunately, purely cosmetic. There are, of course, the animeeples, money tokens and a few other components, but the final major piece of the puzzle (and the one that you’ll spend the most time staring at) is probably Everdell ’s single, huge pile of cards. This is a more of the same expansion adding new events and awards along with a new market location. The player powers are interesting although they do fundamentally change how you approach the game. Now you need to make the best use of this power to do well to make up for not having an extra worker in the final 3 rounds. With one less worker it is now harder to get as many regular and special events. My scores have been higher than in the base game and I run out of spaces in my city faster so these powers do help you gather resources just as well as the extra worker. My favourite part of the expansion is the market board as it changes constantly during the game. I do find the player boards to be too big and cumbersome and wish that they were much smaller. The Bellfaire board itself is very useful and makes the events and players’ workers much easier to see although I still use the tree to store the cards. Overall this is a good expansion whilst not essential it adds a little bit more variability to the base game with few rules changes. Hedgehogs: If you did not gain a berry when you placed a worker on a Basic or Forest location, gain 1 berry.

The two new Events make sense in that they round out the collection to include all of the most sensible options. Having two extra on the board increases the opportunity, temptation, and indecision over whether and when to secure the points. The setup was no joke, obviously, but once laid out the game is quite stunning on the table. Assuming, that is, that a table of sufficient size is available. I’m not sure I’d have been half as happy playing on the floor! By game’s end, our dining room table might have been able to bear a third player, but even at two we were often standing for portions of our turn because the needed component was out of arm’s reach. The scores were bloated, but not to an extreme. Honestly, they were only a small percentage higher than my most recent play of Newleaf.

Modules

The final modules of the expansion are the Garland Award and the Market. There are 7 Garland awards but only one will be used each game. They award endgame points for players with most and second most of something. It could be most critters or most production cards, something like that. Garlands are simple, don’t take any learning and could decide particularly tight games. I see no reason to ever leave them out. As I mentioned at the start of the review, players can mix and match the different modules. If you’re playing with basic Everdell, I think it is easy to mix in the Bellefaire board and everything on it, and to throw in the new player powers. Squirrels: Any time you use a worker to gain at least 1 twig, gain 1 additional twig. When playing a Construction, you may pay 2 twigs to replace 1 of any resource from the cost. Hall, Charlie (December 11, 2018). "The best board games of 2018, as chosen by the Board Game Geek community". Polygon . Retrieved June 27, 2019. Bellfaire offers a number of expansion options that may be used when playing the base game of Everdell or one of its expansions. Before setting up the game, players should choose which modules they wish to include. The details for each module, including setup and rules, are outlined below.

Cardinals: Increase your hand limit by 2 cards. After you draw cards, either from placing a worker or another effect, you may draw 1 additonal card. Like Pearlbrook and Spirecrest, Bellfaire comes with a few extras that don’t add new gameplay elements, but that nonetheless accentuate your base game. It has player pieces for two more players — cardinals and toads — and each of those come with the ambassador you’d need for the Pearlbrook expansion. There are 4 new forest locations and 9 new special event cards, and the new special events are less specific (and thus arguably easier to achieve) than the ones in Everdell. There are also new player boards which have areas for your resources and cards, but I consider these superfluous, as they just occupy tablespace with little new functionality. This may include locations on Destination cards like an Inn or Queen, but not a Cemetery since it is a permanent location. If gaining, choose one of the available tokens, gain the resources and cards, then move that token to the "trade" side. The term gateway game is now used so frequently that I’m not sure it has any value. What is a gateway game anyway? Often it simply seems to suggest that a game has to be as straightforward as something like Monopoly, yet I find that a lot of games carrying the label fail to prepare their charges for what modern board games are really capable of. Everdell might be the perfect gateway game based on my new definition. Why, you ask? Simply put, it does almost everything right — it’s beautiful and well made, it’s very simple and easy to teach, yet despite all that, it’s complex enough to develop some very competitive play. If I have one complaint about Everdell , it’s only that the final scoring can be a bit messy with the frequent need to recount when the score is close.You may pay as many berries as you would like. Example: You could pay 6 berries to decrease the cost of a Construction by 3 resources. I can almost guarantee that everyone’s first play featured mildly neglected cities or cities engineered specifically to grab pearls to get the big Wonders, just to see if they pay off. I can still remember my daughter striving to build the EverTree—her favorite card—only to then trash it via the University or Ruins for a bonus and a chance at the twenty-five point Starfalls Flame. It was exciting, but why must the inclusion of a River eradicate celebrated Events and thrust play in one specific compass direction? The idea that a natural setting could upend the and eliminate key bits of creaturely life seemed odd then, and still does. The Everdell Bellfaire Expansion is a captivating addition to the beloved Everdell board game. This expansion takes players on a new journey to the bustling and vibrant Bellfaire, where they will encounter new characters and engage in exciting gameplay.