Woodcraft - Board Game Review

foreign [Music] this time we are talking about Woodcraft designed by Vladimir tsuchi and Ross Arnold Woodcraft is a one to four player game all about building stuff out of wood cutting wood gluing wood using various bits of wood to make all kinds of stuff and before you go telling me that this isn't real woodwork please note that the dice are actually made of wood so also just like in real woodwork you'll be aided by Sprites and paid in blueberries and even more like real woodwork it is hard Woodcraft will burn your brain like a stove full of dry Cedar freshly chopped for the winter with its combination of an ever-changing action selection wheel comboable actions and dice manipulation and lots more stuff we'll get into right now by looking at how it plays each of your turns have three main parts first you will increase any die that you have in your Planters which is growing trees then you will choose an action from the action wheel which is where you do your woodwork then you will optionally buy points with blueberries the bulk of the turn is spent in that middle step possible actions include buying dice exchanging dice gaining materials you can use to modify dice gaining new orders to fulfill getting helpers planting new trees or making improvements to your wood shop these actions will also provide bonuses based on where they are on the action wheel with the bonuses getting higher depending on how long the action goes unchosen on top of your main action you will also often do free actions which might come from your various helpers tools or items in your wood shop and generally will involve manipulating your dice in some way by cutting gluing splicing Etc as well as fulfilling orders once you have the dice or wood needed to build them during all of this you are also trying to meet public goals and move up the reputation track because after 14 rounds your points will come from whatever you gain throughout the game as well as from your leftover stuff public contracts and a calculation based on your completed contracts multiplied by your final reputation and the greatest woodcrafter is named foreign the biggest source of replayability comes from the fact that this game is hard this is not a junior high shop class this is one of those YouTube channels where a guy makes a full canoe out of an old picnic bench there is a lot to get done in those 14 rounds and you really need to make the right choices to come close to doing it it's not just that you can't do everything some games you will feel like you can't do anything you will need to have a plan and adapt that plan on the Fly and for some players that will lead to a lot of experimentation and following different paths based on how the dice roll or what choices your opponent makes and how that affects how the action wheel moves which helpers come out or what the public contracts are Etc some games you might build an engine of helpers some games you might upgrade your shop and be gluing and cutting all over the place conceivably some games you may have a bunch of tools although we have never managed more than three or four in some games you might not quite get those last few contracts done and have a very quick but painful time scoring Woodcraft plays from one to four players but there are a few caveats the big one is because this is such a thinking game turns can take a while even if everything's going according to plan those free actions can pile up but if your table saw hits a snag it can lead to more than a few AP turns and things can slow down in a hurry so if you are playing with a full four players you're gonna need to be okay with a decent amount of downtime also there are only a few points of indirect interaction to take advantage of those higher player counts mostly just the card markets which refresh pretty regularly on their own and the action wheel where honestly you may want a bit less movement to make planning a smidge easier anyway so generally we would suggest playing this with two unless all players have a solid handle already and you want a little bit of Chit Chat time between turns there there is also a solo mode that's a pretty standard best score mode but with a deck of cards that moves the action wheel and discards the various Dice and cards it's a simple system that should do a fairly good job of replicating the movement of a real game a big part of what makes Woodcraft stand up for Annie the cardboard bits all do their job particularly the tools of which there are many the dice feel especially wooden and old-timey with rustic colors the various Workshop bits are simple but nice and the art on the cards is great both on the contracts with their various wooden toys and Furniture masterpieces and the helpers who lend the game a bit of a wood nymphy magical charm the star of the show however is the action wheel which is cleverly designed like a saw including a blade protector bit that covers bonuses in the first quadrant it is a terrific example of combining theme with function as far as the components go this game is well built Woodcraft is a game for a specific type of audience don't be fooled by the Cozy theme this is as stinky and unforgiving as they come this is not something that you're going to be introducing to your non-gamer dad who just loves to work with wood Woodcraft only has 14 turns and you need to do the most you can with every one of those 14 turns the system can feel rewarding if you get things going the right way and get everything in place to grow and glue and chop your way to filling orders or so I'm told but if you mess up a turn or two it can get downright frustrating this is a game that demands all of your available bandwidth and will be best played against people with a similar skill and experience level which makes that challenge right a fine line between fun and soul crushing but if you are interested in the theme enjoy a heavy puzzle and and already know that you enjoy suchi's more unforgiving designs this one could be a snug fit for the right gamer and that is it have you played Woodcraft what did you think and what are some of your other favorite thinky games please let us know in the comments and as always please do like and subscribe and hopefully we will see you all next time for another game