Redwood is a super cute select-pattern-and-move game about photographing animals. The solo scenarios that come in the box didn’t feel that exciting to me though, so here is my attempt at an alternate solo mode. It can also be used to spice up the competition with low player counts. I’ll update this post as I test it more and tweak it. Should also work with expansion content but I haven’t tried it yet. Feedback very welcome. Hope you have fun with it!
Story
The park has become crowded as more and more people pick up their cameras. Unfortunately, they are all bloody amateurs and keep ruining your shots. Some scare the animals away, others want to make friends and keep approaching you. How annoying!
Setup
Set up as normal in a multiplayer game using the advanced mode side of the panorama cards. After you have chosen a starting position, pick the minis of two other colors and place them on the remaining starting locations. The exact order doesn’t matter. Declare one color as the huggers (e.g. the light grey ones) and the other as the scarers (the dark grey ones).
The Turn
You begin the game and do the first move. After you are done, reveal the next objective card. Then, one by one, the NPCs move, going in clockwise order around the lake starting from where the human player is. Afterwards move the sun as normal and continue with your next move.
A hugger moves to the next hole towards the human player. If there is an animal there, the animal runs to the closest empty hole that’s away from the human player. If there is another photographer in that hole, the hugger doesn’t move and chats with that person. If there is no hole for the hugger that’s closer towards the human player, the hugger will not move at all.
A scarer moves to the spot the next (not necessarily closest) animal is in, clockwise if the last number of the revealed objective card is odd, counterclockwise if it is even. Imagine the hour hand of a clock sweeping around the center lake and the first animal that’s hit from where the scarer stands, that’s where it will run to. The animal will run away to the closest empty hole, no matter if this is closer or father away from the human.
In the following example, the revealed card had an odd number, thus the scarers move clockwise:
After all NPCs have moved, for every sector at least one NPC is in, take the top card of that sector’s panorama deck and move it to the bottom of the deck.
Scoring
Score as normal. You win if you manage to score at least 60 points. Otherwise the idiots have ruined your day and any chance of getting great pictures. You’ll have to try another day!
Expansion Modules
- Hawk Promo: if you do not achieve both criteria on the first objective card, the hawk flies back to the objective card. So to score it, the objective card needs to be scored in two subsequent rounds. When playing with the hawk, you lose the game if it’s not on your panaorma at the end of the game
- Photographer Abilities: increase the VP target by five VP
- Constraint cards: you have to fulfill the constraint, otherwise you lose
- other modules: no modification needed