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Left. Right. Left. Right. To most folks, this makes sense. My neurospiciness, however, likes to make life even more interesting by lumping this confusion on top of a whole host of other unique features! As such, every day life can be a bit of a muddles space. I end up in places I wasn’t expecting, and often get sprayed with water by surprise. And this therefore may come as a surprise, but I love Faraway!
Even though it is a game where knowing the difference between left and right is essential if you are going to do any better than abysmally! My personal “board game band-aid” is therefore to think of this way and then that way.
Or perhaps it isn’t really that surprising because Faraway is simply brilliant. And I love games that punish me!
Lefties and then righties.
If you haven’t seen it before, Faraway is a small, unassuming looking card game with fun, bold artwork.
The rules are simple, and play is fast. 8 turns. Simultaneous play. Boom. Each round everybody picks and plays a card from their hand face down into their own area. Each card you play is going to be placed in a line from left (one side) to right (the other side). And each card contains certain information: card value, icons, scoring criteria, time, and landscape type.
Once revealed, whoever played the lowest value card gets first pick from the new cards in the market. If you have played a card higher than your previous card, then you will get to pick a bonus sanctuary card, and how many you get to choose from will depend on how many visible scrolls there are in your area. Sanctuary cards are excellent as no matter what happens in the remainder of the game, they will remain face up and available.
Once all players have laid the 8th card into their row, the game is over. And then the cold, harsh reality slams you in the face like a frozen flannel. You suddenly realise something so significant that you can’t work out how you could have possibly forgotten about it. Whilst you have played your cards from left to right, they are now all going to flip over and be revealed one by one. Why? Don’t you remember? Oh come on! You know they score from right to left. And then the air gets caught in your chest as you realise you can only make use of the icons and information that are already visible at the time you score each one.
Final Thoughts!
I’m struggling to think of a better word than brilliant to describe Faraway. It’s small, it’s easy to learn, it’s accessible, and best of all it’s fun! Setting yourself up for a truckload of jubby points based on blue crystals only to realise you are one short because you can’t count the cards you laid down early on is sweetly bitter haha.
Trying to decide between laying high cards to get first dibs at the market and low cards to get sanctuary cards is a delicious dilemma that bites every round. I think naming them sanctuaries
is genius as I have been saved by their generosity in colour and icon on many occasion! Not enough to win of course, but sufficient to lose less badly!
Speaking of which, the terrains also have unique patters and so, even with colour sensitivities, the scoring objectives make sense. The icons are also different enough to easily distinguish, and once you work out the sun and moon symbology, you’ll never un-see it. I like how the scoring objectives fall into certain groups – x number of y, or sets of colours etc. It makes the already tense decision space smaller and somehow more manageable. I do wonder if this game will get an expansion at some point, but for now I am very happy losing with what I have got haha.
I don’t know what it is like for other players, but I need to keep checking everything. I lay a card down, or rather I go to lay a card down, and I have forgotten everything. I’m drawing a complete blank on which way we are laying and which way we are scoring. Even though I have just done it 2,3,….. 7 times already! Its like my brain farts and I’m temporarily stunned by the mind melting steam that escapes my ears!
Having introduced this game to my husband as a quick card game that he would like, he was sceptical by its seeming simplicity. He was very quick with his apologies. After the first game was done, he was shuffling and dealing for another go. And although gaming time is tight in our house right now, there is apparently always time for Faraway! I’m not complaining of course. I just wish I could get better at it! But no amount of practice seems to make the prosect of me losing far away Haha
