From Good Games Publishing comes Fairy Season! Entertaining and quick, this game is perfect for multiple playthroughs at once, or a short playthrough while hanging out with friends and family.
The Goblin Chiefs order their Goblin flunkies into the forest to catch Fairies across the four seasons, and shake out their Fairy dust to make a wicked winter brew! Herd Fairies into Swarms and use Goblins to trick and trap them. Lure in the mighty Royal Fairies to free their flighty Fairy friends, then catch them too! The Chief who catches the most Fairies wins.
Good Games Publishing
What’s In The Box?
Fairy Season comes in a beautifully printed cardboard box where the fairies are shiny! I really wish my camera could pick up on how pretty the box is.
Inside:
- 64 Season Fairies: Two of each number (1-8) for each of the four seasons
- 4 Royal Fairies: King, Queen, Prince, Princess
- 16 Goblins: Two each of eight different Goblins
- 6 Traps
- Rulebook
The Seasons 
The Royals 
The Goblins
The cards are really good quality and after shuffling all fit together well and because the box isn’t unnecesarily large it’s easy to stack next to other games for easy access.
How’s It play?
Each player starts with five cards. Whoever ate a mushroom last goes first (cute) and places either a Fairy Season spring or summer card in the middle of the players which starts the Swarm (or stack). From there turns go in a counter-clockwise direction with players placing cards based on the season currently on the Swarm.
Fairy Seasons go in order like real life with Spring starting and Winter ending. If I play a Summer 4 then the next player can play either a Summer 4 and above or they can move to Autumn, however they cannot skip seasons or go backwards. If someone plays Winter 8 then players can only play traps, goblins, or Royal Fairies which try to catch the whole swarm, use chaotic abilities, or free the fairies from a trap respectively.
Royal Fairies are valuable to catch so if someone gets all four into their stash then the game is over and they win.
Of course just these rules alone would make the game super easy and nothing but a card stacking game. Fortunately the creators include a twist, if the next player can’t follow the previous play, they flunk. If the following player also cannot play, they flunk and the last player to place a card wins the Swarm building their Stash.
The game ends either when there are no cards left and the final swarm occurs or someone has all four Royal Fairies. Player with most points (1 per Season fairy, 2 per Royal Fairy, 0 for Goblins and Traps) wins.
Each game takes roughly 20 minutes which is the perfect length in my opinion for a game like this.
The Verdict
Having recently reviewed another card stacking game and remembering all the times my family and I played Phase10, I really enjoyed Fairy Season! There’s only so many ways to make games like these new and inventive and frankly if there’s fairies involved, I’ll probably love it.
Still, I wasn’t prepared for how funny it would be to place Goblins who allow players to steal, replace, and pass cards which depending on the height of the swarm can be disastrous for one or more players.
Additionally, the art on this game is beautiful. Each of the Season Fairies and other cards have a personality elevating this game’s design.
At $18.00, the price is a tad bit high for me, but I still think it’s a good value overall especially since anyone over 10 can play it.
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Images and game courtesy of Good Games Publishing.
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