The Fox in the Forest Duet

The Fox in the Forest Duet is a co-operative trick-taking game for two. Like most trick-takers (such as whist, played with a traditional deck of cards) when one player plays the leading card, the other most ‘follow’ with a card of the same suit if they can: if they can’t, they can ‘dump’ a card of another suit, or play a trump card. Whoever plays the strongest card wins the trick.

But with Duet, the players win or lose as a team, even though you cannot communicate what cards are in your hand. So what exactly are you winning, and what are you trying to do?

Well, as foxes in the forest, you are obviously attempting to collect all the gems (represented by red cardboard chits) scattered along the path that traverses the little board. At the start a number of gems are laid out, and a marker is placed in the centre of the path. When a trick is taken, the winner will move the marker along the path: by the number of pawprints shown on the cards. If there is a gem where the marker stops, the players collect it. Bingo!

But of course it’s not quite as simple as that. For a start, stopping where there is no gems is a bit of a duff move – but sometimes it happens. Then some of the cards aren’t just numbers and suits – they also give whoever plays it a special power that can help you both in the getting-of-gems: changing the trump suit, for instance, swapping a card from your hands or allowing the winning player to choose who moves the marker, rather than simply moving towards the winner by default. Finally, if you ever play so many paws that the marker moves off either end of the path, there is a punishment: the path gets shorter! Now you’ve even less room to manoeuvre…

The path also gets shorter at the end of the first and second rounds; when all eleven tricks have been played. After the third round the game is over – if you’ve gathered every gem, you win! And the game provides a scoring system to measure how well you won. But if any gems remain, you lost, and remain lowly gemless foxes for ever more. Or until you play again.

Sam says

Inspired by The Fox in the Forest, which was a competitive trick-taking game for two, Duet supplies an interesting and unusual collaborative variation using the same kind of mechanics that its predecessor did. You need to like trick-taking games (I do) playing with two (fine) and playing co-operatively (also fine!) but you also need to like this combination of the three – for me, trick-taking games are best in a group, played competitively and without too much puzzled scrutinisation of the odds. I like playing games with two, but I wouldn’t reach for a trick-taker… so it’s not something that hits a preference bullseye here. But all that said, Duet works perfectly well, is nicely presented, and as such will please a lot of people who want a gentle, card-based puzzle for 20 minutes or so.

Take That!

None - you play as a team
Fidget Factor!

Very low
Brain Burn!

Pretty low as well - it's about managing your own cards whilst trying to work out - or anticipate - what your teammate has.
Again Again!

If you like the challenge of Duet, then there's enough cards removed from each round to always make it so.