Releasing in 2023, the drafting card game Faraway has been gathering up award nominations and winning many of those awards. In some respects, it is a pretty simple game. The theme of the game is that players are taking a journey across a foreign land, with cards played representing places they visit and the number on the card representing how long they chose to stay. In a turn, players choose a card from their hand to play, all played cards are simultaneously revealed, and then players take turns drafting a new card to add to their hand. The lowest played card gets to pick first. Cards often display one or more symbols and/or are a specific color. Each card also presents a way to score points at the end of the game. After playing a set number of cards, the game ends. Scoring is somewhat unique. Players go through their cards and score them from last to first, so the last card they play is scored first – all by itself. The first card that was played in a player’s tableau will look at every card played after that to calculate its score. It’s a fast, fun game that is simply a deck (well, technically two decks) of cards. While scoring things can be a little tricky, it’s still simple enough to cement down after playing a single game.

Faraway (and expansion Faraway: Under Starry Skies)
Designer: Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
Players: 2-6
Ages: 10+
Time: 15-30 min
(expansion review copy furnished by publisher)

A game of Faraway consists of players creating an eight card tableau. Each player starts with three region cards. Players choose one card and reveal them simultaneously. Under certain conditions, some players may earn a bonus, Sanctuary card. Next, players draft region cards from the middle of the table (to bring their hand back up to 3 cards.) The player who revealed the lowest numbered card gets to pick first. A new round then begins and things repeat like this until all players have eight region cards played.

Then, it is time to look at the region cards and score some points. At the top of a card there is a unique number, which determines who gets to pick first from the tableau that round. There might also be special symbols (animal, stone, flower – in order of frequency, and possibly a “map” icon) on the card which can trigger some scoring. Each card has a color representing one of four seasons (there is also a non-colored grey color), and finally, at the bottom, a formula to score points.

There are many formulas to score points, most formulas have a prerequisite. For example, someone might score points for spring and summer cards, but might first need at least one plant and one stone symbol. Harder goals (like getting three plants) will, if me, provide more points. Cards can score points for specific symbols, sets of colors, and so on. Here is where the first played, last scored mechanism comes into play. After players place their last card, the game ends and scoring begins. When determining the score of that card, only that card is used. No symbols or values from previous cards will count. The second to last card played will attempt to score points based on it, and the last card played. The rules suggest turning all your cards upside down and slowly revealing them right to left in order to best track one’s score and not accidentally count icons before they are eligible.

There is one final twist on card play. If a player places a region card that is a higher number than their previous card, they gain a bonus card from the sanctuary card deck. This is a second deck of smaller cards that might have symbols, have a color/season, and/or (fairly rare) have another opportunity to score at the end of the game. A player draws sanctuary cards equal to 1+ their number of map icons, and keeps one (playing it) and discards the rest. The best part of sanctuary cards is that they are always face-up. Thus, even your last region card played will benefit from any sanctuary cards you may have.

Faraway: Under Starry Skies
There have been two expansions for the game. The newest one, Faraway: Under Starry Skies adds some new region cards to the mix. They are similar to all previous region cards (icons, scoring, etc…) but have a sky with pink meteors passing through it. Their common property is, like sanctuary cards, meteor cards always count toward scoring. They can fulfill requirements for cards played later in the game. The meteor cards also have some new scoring options like scoring “4 of a kind” season cards or even getting points for throwing away sanctuary cards.

Verdict:
Faraway gives players some fun decisions to be had. Obviously, your early cards should generate most of your points, as you will have the longest time to set up for them. Because you are drafting, not drawing cards, players are given a bit more agency in what they pick up. Sure, one can still risk trying to find a lot of specific cards, but at least you know what you’re getting into. Those sanctuary cards are golden, as they are used even by the last card played, but that also means you need to be playing cards in numerical order. That may not be how you want to place them for scoring. Add in the accumulation of map icons – more map icons, the better you can search the sanctuary cards for better cards. This balance of trying to place to score and trying to place to gain sanctuary cards prevents most choices from simply being automatic.

Faraway is a great game for boardgamers just dipping their toe into the wider world of boardgames. Gameplay is fairly straightforward, once the scoring is understood, and a single game should run less than 30 minutes. Non-gamers are going to need to play the game once to truly “grok” the scoring but with its short timeframe it shouldn’t be too bad to get it to the table a second time. More experienced gamers can easily use this as a “filler” game to start, end, or pad out the middle of a more extended time of boardgaming.

Kid Factor:
The art is great, it’s kinda cute and happy colored so the theme is pretty tame. There isn’t any reading required in Faraway but there is a lot going on in scoring. However, after a game or two, most players will start to pick up how to play. I would still err a bit on the older side and the game’s recommended 10+ isn’t too bad. The Under Starry Skies expansion kicks things up in complexity but really only a little bit. When explaining the game to new players I will not ever use the expansion as I don’t think it adds much to the game. I could see adding it in with experienced players but really not until we’ve played it enough to want to change things up.

Tags: Game Reviews, Misc, Unplugged