Fungi – A Couple’s Review

Fungi is a game that probably asked the question 'what if you could forage mushrooms and cook them, to score points'?
The board game itself answers the question it poses by providing you with energy to gain and expend - aka sticks, mushrooms to be collected and cooked in lots of 2 or more in their respective pans, with added bonuses provided through other ingredients like butter or cider. It's a relatively quick game that packs away neatly.

We most certainly enjoyed how Fungi played out, with Joshua winning most of the games we played while Anjali floundered behind.

I had to do some initial research on Fungi before I could write a final verdict on how I felt about the boxing for the game. The version of Fungi we have is made entirely of cards and in my opinion, could have been packed away as a deck of cards, rather than in the box as it currently is, to make the game more portable. I do acknowledge, that there is a version where you get cardboard tokens for sticks, which look super cute!
However, it doesn't change the fact that Fungi could've been a neat little game packed away into a card box than a big board game box, especially since all we got were cards.

The art is gorgeous! We enjoy looking at the cards, and the information being provided on every card makes it easier to focus on playing the game, than cross checking with the handy card guide you get in addition to the rulebook. The update from Morels to Fungi is great.

Overall, the game is quick paced and really enjoyable, though we do admit it made us quite hungry for mushrooms. Its perfect for couples to play it over a convenient meal, preferably one with lots of mushrooms!

Fungi is a pretty chill game, great for slow evenings in with board games. The game isn't complex and has a nice pace at which it is played, with simple additional mechanics like baskets for added hand limit, and butter and cider to add more flavour to the game. 

It's a pretty good two player game that we both enjoyed playing that speaks to both our competitive sides, but doesn't require too much brain racking unless we feel like counting cards... which we've done in all the games we've played so far, hoping to get the tastiest mushrooms together!

Fungi can be played in a relatively constrained space, with the most amount of space required being length-wise, forming the forest line between the two players. We played comfortably on a 65 x 115 cm table which left us with more than enough space for snacks and refreshments.

Well, let's just say our first time playthrough wasn't the best and we should've paid more attention to both the rulebook and video tutorial... oops.

The box opens up to reveal two slots within which your forest, night and stick cards are divided into. The setup is pretty quick once you know what you're doing, but the first time we got all the cards, we accidentally shuffled the sticks and night cards in with the forest cards.

Once we sorted that mess out, Anjali spent a good 15 minutes deciphering the translated rules and managing the setup, but not fully grasping the accurate game loop. We referred to our handy card guides and rulebook before giving in to watching a video tutorial because it just didn't feel like it flowed quite correctly.

As you can imagine, our first game involved more questions to one another. Here's a dramatic enactment of our evening playing the game with no snacks or mushrooms to eat...

Joshua: What did the basket mean again? And hey, why'd you just put the basket in your display?!
Anjali: So the basket increases your hand limit by two and when you pick it up, it goes straight into your display.
Joshua: Well... guess who hasn't been doing that...?
Anjali: Oh, I'm sorry, i wasn't paying attention to what you did once you picked up a card. My bad.

A little while later, after the forest deck runs out.

Anjali: So... the game ends here? Immediately? But... I still had stuff to doooooooo
Joshua: Well, you shoud've focused on cooking your mushies instead of just collecting them.
Anjali: Boooooooo
Joshua: okay, shall we play till we have nothing left to do?
Anjali: I'd be okay with that!

Us calculating our scores after all the forest cards get taken and Anjali puts down the last of her cards.#

Anjali: Hm, I'd win like this, but not if we ended the game as soon as the forest deck ran out.
Joshua: Yeah, I'd have won if the game ended right as the forest deck ran out.

Anjali checks the game end and scoring rules again.

Anjali: oh... well, so, uh. That was wrong as well... the game ends once there are no more forest cards to pick up.
Joshua: Yeah, the forest deck runs out...
Anjali: No, no, like the cards continue till the last card by the forest at our feet goes away...
Joshua: Oh.
Anjali: Yeah.

Anjali: Another game?
Joshua: Sounds good.

We enjoyed the game inspite of the hiccups, though we will say our second game ran far more smoothly as you might expect.

Joshua landed his strategy really well, which is, focus less on rare mushrooms and more on the common mushrooms, and get them cooked as soon as you've collected the minimum required. His strategy ensures a steady stream of points, gathering from both the forest and discard as convenient, rather than banking on getting strategically lucky and scoring big flavour points with the rarer mushrooms.

Anjali on the other hand, likes to focus on acquiring rare mushrooms, and moon cards to get night mushrooms, in the hopes of being able to land big flavour points. This strategy doesn't necessarily pan out well all the time and certainly requires a luck element.

Fungi is quite straightforward and we'd say low in complexity, unless you choose to count cards. While you do get in groove by the fourth or fifth round, we'd say the game feels best the second time round you play.

Fungi is a great, quick, two player game that wraps up in 20-30 minutes, leaving you hungry as you imagine the sounds of the forest, with the smells of moss, mushroom and burnt butter tickling your nose.

We highly recommend a light mushroom themed meal when playing Fungi, alongside a warm cup of tea as you forage for through the forest and cook up delicious buttery mushroom goodness! 

If you enjoyed reading our review on Fungi, and are looking for more 2 player friendly games to play, we've written a review on Flamecraft, which is a lovely worker placement game that we play by ourselves, and with friends quite often, which you can read right here.