Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor
Build a thriving moorland habitat around trees, shrubs and horizontal terrain cards.
Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor uses the familiar choice to draw two cards or play one into your habitat, but the moorland changes where species can live. Trees and shrubs offer four sides for split cards; horizontal terrains offer two slots above and two below. Asymmetrical caves add an opening decision and points from cards tucked into them.
This is a complete standalone game, not an expansion to the 2023 Forest Shuffle. The publisher’s printed rules say the two decks and their expansion lines are not combined. The matching 2026 add-on is Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor: Exmoor.
Why It Stands Out
The new terrain cards turn an ordinary placement decision into a habitat decision: a card that scores in a moor cannot simply be slotted anywhere. Cave selection sets a different opening for each player. With the third winter ending play immediately, every card taken or played also changes how much time is left to complete a scoring plan.
What is in the base box?
Lookout lists 180 cards: 44 trees and shrubs, 27 terrains, 101 split cards, three winter cards and five caves, plus a clearing board, rulebook and scorepad. Kosch designed the game; Toni Llobet and Judit Piella illustrated it. It supports two to five players and is listed at about an hour. The official site also provides optional print-and-play solo Automa materials; those are a separate download rather than a reason to assume printed solo components are in the base box.
How the game works
Each player starts with six cards, then drafts a cave in reverse turn order and applies its setup effect. The draw pile is built with three winter cards near its bottom. On a turn choose exactly one action: take up to two cards, one at a time, from the face-down stack or face-up clearing; or pay cards from your hand to play one card into your forest. Cards paid as cost go face up into the clearing. You can hold at most ten cards.
Trees and shrubs provide one slot on each side. A terrain is placed horizontally and has two top and two bottom slots, with no side slots. Split animal and plant cards show two possible halves; place one visible half in a suitable empty slot and hide the other under its tree, shrub or terrain. Some inhabitants specifically require a moor. Effects resolve after the card is paid and placed, followed by any earned bonus. When the clearing reaches ten or more cards at the end of a turn, empty it. See the step-by-step guide for setup, cave effects and the winter trigger.
How do you win?
The third winter card ends the game immediately, even in the middle of a turn. Total the points of all visible cards in your forest according to their printed conditions, and add one point for each card in your cave. The hidden half of a split card is no longer in your forest for scoring. Some cards score sets, certain types or habitats; others depend on opponents’ moor counts. Tied highest scores share the win. The scoring guide explains examples and easy-to-miss conditions.
Where decisions matter
Choose a cave for its opening effect and how realistically you can fill it, rather than only its point potential. Build a mix of tree/shrub side slots and moor top/bottom slots so your hand has legal homes. When you play a high-cost card, its payment replenishes the shared clearing for opponents; when you play a tree, another deck card is revealed there. The stack is also the winter timer. The strategy guide turns these constraints into practical tradeoffs, not a fixed card ranking.
What Exmoor adds
Lookout’s 2026 Exmoor expansion contains 55 cards: 50 shuffled into the base deck and five replacement caves. The new cards introduce a clearing-based free placement effect and expand existing ponies and dragonfly sets. Exmoor requires Dartmoor. It does not turn the original Forest Shuffle box into a Dartmoor game. The expansion rulebook adjusts the number of cards removed during setup by player count, so do not reuse the base counts unchanged.
Which box fits your group?
For a new player choosing between the two standalones, Dartmoor offers moor terrain, cave drafting and a new species deck while preserving the draw-or-play rhythm. An owner of the original Forest Shuffle who wants to keep expanding that particular deck should follow its own expansion line. Someone who wants the moorland version can buy Dartmoor without owning the original, then consider Exmoor after learning the base habitat. The game’s five-player support comes from Lookout’s rulebook, despite some retail listings showing four.
Explore Dartmoor in depth
Publisher sources
- Lookout Dartmoor product page and English rules
- Lookout Exmoor product page and English expansion rules
Rules and product scope checked October 3, 2026. Strategy is editorial reasoning based on the published rules, not a claim of personal playtesting.