Bring your favorite classic fairy tales to life in this amazingly designed game for 2-4 players, in 45-60 minutes, for ages 14+. My 7 , 9, and 11 year old’s love to play. Their strategic level is not super high, but they really enjoy it and they are learning such good skills from playing games that stretch their abilities!
The Grimm Forest Story
The King is searching for a competent builder to develop the Grimm Forest. Since the Royal Builders (those infamous Three Little Pigs) have grown too old and feeble, new builders must be found among the Pig Brothers’ industrious nieces and nephews.
You are vying for this honored position and have thus entered the competition. The player who builds three houses the fastest will win the bid and become the new Royal Builder, a position which ensures prestige and wealth far into the future. Gather resources wisely, build quickly, and watch out for Monsters in the forest!
Gather Phase
Each player has a set of Gather cards in their player color. The 4 resource options each round are
- Gather Straw
- Gather Wood
- Gather Brick
- Gather Market
Players must secretly select one gather card and may select one Fable card if they want.
Fable cards are revealed first and are resolved immediately if the card indicates. Fable Cards usually provide a one-time use special ability and are then discarded.
Players then simultaneously reveal their selected Gather cards and place their Pig on the location they chose to gather.
Resources are placed on the gather locations at the beginning of each round. Players get to take the resources on their chosen location. If more than one player chooses the same location, the resources must be split evenly between them. Locations that don’t get visited keep their resources for the next round.
Monsters are mixed into the Fable Cards deck. When a Monster card is played, the player places the Monster (these pieces are AMAZING with such intricate details!) on one of the Gather Locations to affect players at that location. The Monsters are removed from the Gather Locations at the end of the round so only prey on their victims for one turn at a time.
Build Phase
In the Build Phase, players can perform two actions in turn order.
- Draw a Fable Card
- Gain 1 Resource
- Build 1 House Section
- House Sections must be build in order (floor, then walls, then roof).
- You can build multiple houses simultaneously, but only one of each type at a time.
- Players can build a maximum number of 5 houses per game.
After building a Wall Section, the player may draw 1 Friend Card and either keep it or give it to another player. Friend cards offer special powers but you can only have one at a time in your hand.
After playing through the Gathering and Building phases, there’s a quick Clean Up phase to reset the board for the next round.
The first player to build 3 complete houses is the winner!
Grimm Forest has so many great gameschooling connections with literature, math, strategy, history, and more. It’s a lot of fun to play with all 4 players, and kids younger than the recommended age of 14 can totally play and have a great time. Familiarity is an important friend to learning, and playing a game with all these familiar characters helps build connections in a child’s brain, happy memories around stories, and fun times with friends and family.
Thanks so much to Druid City Games for sharing this beautiful, fun, and educational game with us!
