The Fox in the Forest Duet

About this board game

The Fox in the Forest Duet is a cooperative trick-taking game for two players that takes about 30 minutes. Work together to guide your team through the forest, collect all 22 gems, and complete the challenge before the end of three rounds.

Each round begins with a freshly shuffled deck of 30 cards. The deck contains three suits numbered from 1 to 10; each player receives eleven cards, and one card is revealed as the decree card to determine the trump suit. Players then compete in a series of tricks, with one player leading and the other following suit whenever possible.

The winner of each trick moves the team tracker toward themselves by a number of spaces equal to the fox footprints on the cards played. Landing next to a gem lets the team collect it, but movement can also push the tracker off the path. When that happens, the tracker returns to the center, a forest token covers one end, and the available path becomes shorter.

• Cooperative play: coordinate your decisions in a two-player partnership.
• Special character abilities: odd-numbered character cards can alter movement, ignore footprints, exchange a card, or change the decree card.
• Three-round challenge: add five gems and shorten the path at the end of each round.

The character abilities create opportunities to control where the tracker lands, helping you reach gems with precision. At the end of a round, five gems are added to designated spaces, a forest space shortens the path, and both players receive a new hand of eleven cards.

Collect every gem to win. If time runs out or the tracker moves beyond the path with no forest spaces remaining, the team is defeated and can shuffle the cards to begin again. With its shared decisions and steadily shrinking route, The Fox in the Forest Duet turns familiar trick-taking rules into a focused cooperative journey.