I’ve always been a video game guy. From the moment my dad brought home that NES in ’85, I’ve had a controller in my hand and pixels in my heart. Board games were something I played at family gatherings under duress—Monopoly marathons that ended in table-flipping arguments, or Risk campaigns abandoned halfway through when everyone got bored or hungry. The idea that a cardboard game could compete with the immersive worlds on my screen seemed laughable.
Until Everdell happened.
It was Brandon’s fault, really. We’ve been gaming buddies since college, grinding through MMOs and co-op campaigns for decades, but he’d started dabbling in modern board games a few years back. Every time he’d bring them up, I’d nod politely while mentally planning which video game I’d play when I got home. Then one game night (usually our weekly “shoot aliens together” session), he showed up at my place with this massive box instead of his usual laptop.
“Just try it,” he said, setting up what looked like a tiny woodland diorama on my coffee table. “If you hate it, we can play Destiny after.”
We never logged into Destiny that night. Or the next week. Or the week after that.
The first thing that grabbed me about Everdell was simply how it looked on the table. Board games in my memory were flat affairs with maybe some cheap plastic pieces. Everdell erupts from the table with a three-dimensional resin tree towering over a meadow board, with ridiculously detailed resources like little amber resin tokens and tiny wooden berries. The cards feature anthropomorphic woodland creatures with art so charming it should be illegal. I found myself picking up cards just to admire the illustrations of scholarly hedgehogs and industrious squirrels.
“This is just to sucker you in,” I remember telling Brandon as I arranged my initial resources. “Pretty components hiding boring gameplay.”
Three hours later, I was scheming about card combinations and resource generation paths like I was optimizing a Skyrim character build.
For the uninitiated, Everdell is a worker placement game mixed with tableau building, set in a valley where animal civilizations build their towns through the seasons of a year. You start with just a couple of worker meeples (adorable little wooden animals) and a handful of resources. You place your workers to gather more resources, draw cards, or take other actions. The cards represent either critters (the citizens of your town) or constructions (the buildings they inhabit).
What makes the game brilliant is how these cards interact with each other. Play a Teacher, and suddenly your other critters are generating additional resources. Build a Farm, and it becomes easier to feed your growing population. These combinations create what gamers recognize as “engines”—systems that start generating resources or benefits with increasing efficiency as the game progresses.
As a longtime strategy gamer, something clicked in my brain. This wasn’t so different from building a base in StarCraft or developing an economy in Civilization. The resource engine building techniques felt familiar, just translated to a physical space. But there was something uniquely satisfying about physically placing those little wooden workers and watching my town grow card by card across the table.
The seasonal gameplay cycle gives Everdell a perfect pace. You start in winter with few options, then expand your worker pool and opportunities as you progress through spring and summer, before preparing for a final push in the fall. It creates a natural narrative arc for each game session, and the physical act of moving your squirrel worker around the board gives a tactile dimension that clicking pixels can’t match.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t initially skeptical about the theme. Cute woodland creatures building a fairy tale town? It seemed a far cry from the post-apocalyptic and sci-fi worlds I usually inhabited in video games. But the adorable exterior hides genuine strategic depth. Some of the most cutthroat gaming moments I’ve experienced happened beneath that resin tree, as my friends and I raced to claim limited spaces and resources.
My buddy Dave, another digital diehard, joined us for his first game a few weeks later. He scoffed at the critter cards initially. “Are those hamsters wearing hats? What am I, five years old?” By the end of the night, he was arguing passionately that the raven banker was clearly superior to the shopkeeper fox, and demanding a rematch. The conversion had claimed another victim.
The worker placement mechanics explained plainly: you have limited workers (starting with just two!) and must decide where to place them on the board. Some spots gather basic resources like resin, pebbles, and berries. Others let you draw cards or gain special benefits. The brilliance is in the scarcity—once a spot is taken, it’s generally unavailable to others, creating delicious tension as you watch your friends’ hands hover over the exact action space you desperately need.
What surprised me most was how Everdell managed to create the same “one more turn” compulsion that keeps me playing Civilization until 3 AM. Every decision branches into new possibilities. Play a Mine to get more pebbles, which lets you afford the Clock Tower, which pairs with the Historian for bonus points… The critter card combinations create strategic depth that unfolds gradually, making each game a unique puzzle.
The component quality is almost ridiculous compared to the board games of my youth. The tree isn’t just a showpiece—it holds the game’s deck and upcoming cards in its branches. The resources aren’t just colored cubes—they’re shaped like what they represent and made from materials that feel good in your hand. Even the box insert is thoughtfully designed to hold the oddly shaped components. The production value rivals limited edition video game packages, which helped ease my transition from digital to analog.
My strategy evolved over our first several games. Initially, I approached Everdell like an RTS—rushing to expand my worker pool as quickly as possible. That works sometimes, but I’ve found subtler approaches focusing on card synergies often prove more effective. I’ve developed a fondness for what Dave calls my “university town” strategy—focusing on Sage, Teacher, and School combinations that snowball knowledge into victory points.
My wife Sarah, who has tolerated my gaming habit with bemused support for fifteen years, noticed our new obsession and asked to join in. She’d never shown interest in my video games beyond occasionally watching over my shoulder, but something about these woodland creatures intrigued her. Now she’s arguably better than any of us, with an uncanny ability to pivot her strategy based on the available cards. Her unexpected entrance into the hobby has given us a new way to connect, which alone would make Everdell worth its price.
Speaking of price—that was initially a hurdle. Board games, especially the premium production ones like Everdell, aren’t cheap. I remember balking when Brandon told me what it cost. “I could buy two or three Steam games for that!” But the cost-per-play ratio quickly eclipsed most video games in my library. We’ve played dozens of times now, with no DLC or subscription fees in sight.
The inevitable happened about three months into our Everdell obsession—I bought my first expansion, Pearlbrook. It adds water creatures, a new pearl resource, and an ambassador worker type. Like good video game DLC, it expanded the core experience without overcomplicating it. The river folks and their pearl economy open up new strategies without invalidating the original ones. I’ve since collected Spirecrest and Bellfaire too, each adding different dimensions to play.
Comparing Everdell to digital strategy games highlights both similarities and differences. Both feature resource management, strategic planning, and optimization puzzles. But board games add the social dimension right at the table—you’re looking your opponents in the eye as you claim the meadow space they desperately needed. And there’s something irreplaceable about the physical interaction—the satisfying clack of wooden meeples, the shuffle of cards, the tangible growth of your town.
The solo play mode analysis surprised me too. As someone who plays many single-player video games, I was skeptical about board game solo variants. Everdell’s Rugwort variant (an automated rival) provides a solid challenge that maintains most of what makes the multiplayer game special. I’ve spent many weeknight evenings with just the game, a drink, and some music—something I never imagined I’d say about a board game.
My game shelf has transformed over the past year. Video game boxes still dominate, but they’re increasingly sharing space with board game boxes. Everdell sits prominently at the center—the gateway game that changed my perspective on an entire medium. Brandon looks smug whenever he visits now, seeing what he’s created.
What I’ve come to appreciate most is how Everdell creates a different kind of immersion than video games. Digital worlds envelope you with visuals and sound, creating environments you observe and interact with. Everdell’s physical presence in a shared space creates a different magic—a world you and your friends collectively bring to life through imagination and social interaction. The forest valley exists as much in our banter and shared narrative as in the physical components.
I won’t be giving up video games anytime soon. They remain my primary gaming medium and first love. But Everdell opened a door to experiences I’d been missing—the direct social connection, the tactile satisfaction, the shared story creation that happens around a table. Now when friends come over, they often ask “video games or board games tonight?” The fact that it’s even a question would have shocked my former self.
If you’re a lifelong digital gamer curious about the cardboard side, Everdell might be your gateway too. Just be warned: that adorable resin tree is more dangerous than it looks. One game could transform your gaming life—and possibly your living room storage situation—forever.
