Everdell

What is Everdell?

Everdell is a competitive woodland city-building game that combines worker placement with a growing tableau of cards. Workers visit locations to gather twigs, resin, pebbles and berries or carry out useful actions. Those resources help you play constructions and critters into a personal city.

The two systems support one another. A location can supply the last resource for a construction, which may make a related critter easier to recruit. A production card can improve your next seasonal income. Your city becomes an engine, but its limited space means that building more is not automatically the same as building better.

Who is it for?

Our editorial assessment is that Everdell suits players who enjoy card combinations, timing choices and competition for public action spaces. The woodland theme is approachable, while the rules ask you to read specific card abilities and distinguish shared locations from exclusive ones.

The publisher’s standard-game page lists one to four players, ages ten and up and 40–80 minutes. Allow additional time for teaching. Players seeking a shorter resource-engine introduction can compare Splendor; those drawn to nature-themed card combinations can also explore Wingspan.

The three choices on a turn

1. Place a worker: use an available worker at a legal location and take its resources or resolve its action.
2. Play one card: choose a card from your hand or the public Meadow, satisfy its cost and restrictions, then add it to your city and resolve its ability.
3. Prepare for the next season: after deploying your workers, retrieve them and take the next season’s workers and bonuses when you choose to move on.

Placing a worker and playing a card are separate normal turn choices. You do not automatically perform both. Workers usually remain deployed until your Prepare for Season action, although particular locations and card effects can create exceptions.

The Meadow contains eight face-up cards available for play. Taking a card into your hand and playing it into your city are different events; follow the effect that lets you draw or play rather than treating the Meadow as a free hand.

Constructions, critters and city limits

You may pay a critter’s berry cost normally. Alternatively, if its listed construction is already in your city and has not been used for that purpose, the construction can let you play the critter without paying berries. Mark it with an occupied token. This benefit is available once per construction, and removing the critter later does not clear that token.

A city normally has fifteen spaces. The rulebook and specific cards include exceptions: some cards share a space or do not occupy one. Events sit outside the city limit. Count occupied spaces rather than assuming that fifteen physical cards is always the maximum.

Common cards can have multiple copies in your city, while a particular unique card can appear only once. Your hand has a strict eight-card limit under this rulebook. Keep hand size, city spaces and deployed workers separate when checking whether an action is legal.

Players prepare for seasons independently

Everdell begins in late winter and progresses toward the end of autumn. Each player starts with two workers. Preparing for spring adds one worker and activates green production cards; preparing for summer adds one worker and lets you draw up to two Meadow cards; preparing for autumn adds two workers and activates production again.

Green cards also activate when first played. Summer preparation does not itself trigger a general production step. The key timing distinction is that players do not change seasons together: one city can be in summer while another player is still using spring actions.

Moving to the next season uses your turn. You do not retrieve workers, take the seasonal bonuses and immediately place a worker as an extra normal action. That timing can affect which public location will be available when your next turn arrives.

When the game ends and what scores

After reaching autumn, a player who cannot or does not wish to take further actions passes and finishes. Other players continue until everyone is finished. The first player to finish does not end the session for the whole table.

Add the base points on city cards, point tokens, purple prosperity bonuses, Journey points and achieved Events. Read each bonus’s exact condition; a card’s printed base value may be only part of its contribution. The core rulebook breaks a tied score first by achieved Events, then by leftover resources.

Beginner decisions that matter

• Build around affordable connections. A construction and its related critter can work together, but only if the resource cost and city-space commitment fit your plan.
• Value production by timing. An early green card may activate when played and at later seasonal production steps. A late one has fewer opportunities to return its cost.
• Watch exclusive locations. If a scarce action space provides exactly what you need, consider when another worker may claim it before your next turn.
• Keep city space for useful cards. Filling every space early can prevent a stronger combination later. Check which cards can share space or leave your city under their own effects.
• Read Events before chasing them. Compare their requirements with the cards you already want to play. A long detour can cost actions and resources without strengthening the city.
• Prepare with a next-turn plan. Think about what your retrieved and newly gained workers will do, rather than advancing the season only because your current workers are deployed.

These are editorial starting points. The Meadow, forest locations, Events and particular card effects determine what is practical in a given game.

Rugwort solo play

The linked base rulebook supports solo play against Rugwort with its own setup and instructions. The opponent blocks selected locations and gains cards according to a die-driven procedure. Follow that section rather than attempting to simulate a second ordinary player.

Mistwood introduces another automated opponent and requires the base game. Its procedures are not Rugwort’s rules. This archive entry’s one-player support refers to the original base-rulebook solo mode, without requiring an expansion.

Expansions and standalone Everdell games

Pearlbrook, Spirecrest, Bellfaire, Newleaf and Mistwood are expansion products with their own modules and setup changes. A complete collection bundles additional material; its advertised capacity should not be applied automatically to a standard base-game session.

Everdell Duo, Farshore and Silverfrost are separate standalone designs in the wider family. Their player counts, seasonal procedures and card systems need their own rulebooks. Check the actual box and agreed modules before learning a session from an online guide.

Continue exploring

Featured in: Best Worker-Placement Board Games · Best Nature Board Games.

• Viticulture Essential Edition for another worker-placement game built around seasonal timing and long-term production.
• Wingspan for bird-card chains and a personal habitat engine.
• Terraforming Mars for a longer card-driven development game.
• Scythe for resource development tied to a shared map.
• Browse the game archive by players, time and mechanisms.

Everdell expansions

Compare Everdell expansions · Browse all expansion guides

Focused Everdell rules

Occupied Constructions · Prepare for Season · Destination cards · 8-card hand limit

Compare Everdell

Everdell vs Wingspan · Everdell vs Ark Nova

Sources, scope and corrections

• Official Everdell game page — product scope, specifications and publisher context.
• Publisher base-game rules — actions, scoring and setup.
• Publisher’s Mistwood page — expansion requirement and separate opponent system.
• Publisher’s Everdell Duo page — separate standalone product.

Edition scope: Original Everdell standard base game, English Core Game Rulebook labeled second edition ©2018–2021 and currently linked by the publisher. Covers normal multiplayer and the separate Rugwort solo rules. Expansion modules, Collector extras and standalone Duo, Farshore and Silverfrost rules are excluded. Sources checked September 15, 2026. Consult your own box’s rulebook when its edition or components differ. Read our corrections process.