Fort

It’s an interesting aside that I’m writing this review directly after my upcoming Things from the Flood RPG review. Why is that interesting, you ask? Well, both Fort and TftF’s predecessor, Tales from the Loop, have the players taking the role of kids at play. But they approach it from very different angles. Fort is beautifully designed deck-building card game, in which you are gathering you friends to build the best fort in the neighbourhood. 

Every part of this game is just elegant in its own way. Each player starts with two Best Friends. Your besties are always there for you, even if you don’t play with them all the time (I’ll mention how that functions in a bit). There is a deck each of 11 Made-Up Rule cards and of 9 Perk cards, these are shuffled and the number of players plus one is dealt out face up, with the remaining cards put away. Each play takes eight Kid cards, for a total of 10 including your besties, and another three Kids are dealt face up into the Park area below the Victory Track board.

I’ll skip the first round, and describe gameplay from the second onwards. Bare with me as there isn’t a perfect linear place to start describing this:

Phase 1: Clean up – If you have any friends in your Yard, move them to your discard pile.

Phase 2: Play – Play one card from your hand. Most cards have two actions on them, one public and one private. The player can use one or both of these actions in either order, then everyone else has the opportunity to “follow the leader” and also take the public action on the played card by discarding the appropriate card tip from their hand.

Phase 3: Recruit – Make a new friend by taking one card from an opponent’s Yard, the Park, or by drawing a blind card from the Park deck. Cards taken from the Park are replaced from the deck, cards taken from an opponent are not replaced.

Phase 4: Discard – Any cards that you played or added during your turn go into your discard pile. Any cards you did not use are placed in your yard where your opponents might poach them from you. Your Best Friend cards are always placed into your discard pile and never relegated to your Yard. Best Friends Forever!

Phase 5: Draw – draw five cards from your own deck, reshuffling your discard pile (not your Yard) if necessary. This is the only time you will draw cards, so if you discard cards to follow the leader they aren’t replaced until the end of your turn.

There are two ways to end the game. When a player reaches 25 Victory Points or their Fort reaches Level 5, the end game is triggered. That round continues until play reaches the first player again, allowing everyone an even number of turns and potentially allowing a different player to swoop in and take the victory. Victory Points are gained from cards and by upgrading your Fort. Upgrading your Fort requires you to play a card with the (public or private) Upgrade action, and pay a cost in Toys and Pizza that increases each time. Yes, you read that correctly. Toys and Pizza. The currency of every Kid’s universe. 

There is a ton of extra little details making Fort amazing, that I’ve just skipped here. The one thing that I don’t think I’m legally allowed to skip, however, is the art. Kyle Ferrin has illustrated most, possibly all, of the Leder Games catalogue. To be completely blunt, his art has probably brought in more new people to their games than most reviews ever will. He’s easily one of my favourite artists in the tabletop industry. 

Fort is one of those games I sort of hate to review, not because it’s “bad” but because it’s so good that I’m disappointed that I have to move on to other games. I’ll for sure be playing this more, mind you. But not nearly as much as you, my dear reader, likely will.

You can find Leder Games online at ledergames.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/LederBoardGames.