Faraway

In Faraway, players are building a set of 8 region cards that will – or may – score when they are revealed. There are two catches – firstly, whether a card scores or not relies on the symbols on other revealed cards. Secondly, all eight cards will be revealed in reverse order!

The cards are all numbered and come in four suits (red, blue, yellow, green). Before play begins players are dealt a hand of five and discard down to three. Then there are eight rounds: in each, you play one of your cards from your hand to a ‘tableau’ in front of you: this will be part of your revealed set later. Then players take turns adding a new card to their hands from the shared supply: a number of face-up cards on the table. After this, a new round begins.

If you play a card into your tableau that has a higher number than the previously-added card, there’s a bonus: you get a Sanctuary card. These function as little additions in suits and/or scoring, and can be very helpful indeed. The general thrust of the game is to make sure your later cards (and/or your Sanctuary cards) will have the symbols on them that will make your earlier cards score – as you will, remember, be revealing them in reverse order!

After the eighth round, everyone flips their cards face-down then reveals them from card 8 back to card 1. Each card scores at the moment it is flipped, this is the pivotal thing to remember. It’s no good having card 7 needing four rocks to score if three of them are hidden under card 6. After points are tallied, the player with the highest total is the winner!