Hi All, Jon thanks for the fantastic playthrough, I think you did a great job showcasing the gameplay and capturing the essence of the game. I am the designer of the game and just wanted to share my thoughts on the design in response to some of the feedback and comments. I intentionally designed this game with "simple" mechanics so that it would be approachable by many types of players. The simplicity of the central mechanic allows for emergent complexity and strategic choices based on your ability to read other players. The design scales well with the skill of players, with more experienced gamers being able to more astutely read their opponents and the board position, but also needing to take into account that their opponents are evaluating the game at a high level as well. As to what justifies plastic minis and awesome components that is really for everyone to determine for themselves. I can think of a great number of big mini's games that have no gameplay to speak of and hardly justify the fancy bits. As this game is based in such a fantastic and familiar world it really enhances the feel and play of the game to have such amazing components. While not essential they do make for an incredible play experience. Thanks for your interest and I encourage everyone to give this game a try as even a top notch playthrough such as Jon's cannot quite convey the tension, suspense and excitement of this game. If you have any specific questions about the design I am happy to answer them as best I can. Tim

I like how this game uses light resource management, and light bluffing/take that. This seems like a great intermediate game. I've been slowly teaching my wife board games. This is a great example of a bridge game for someone like her. I like the video, but I wouldn't mind seeing the game played by multiple people. I personally will be backing this game.

For all those below who bemoan the "meanness" of this game, IMHO, aren't categorizing this game correctly. ... By watching Jon's playthrough, this appears to be a cut-throat, "take that" style of game. OK. That's what it is. So either you can handle playing this style of game or you can't. For most people who've commented and obviously don't appreciate this style of game, then so be it. But don't blame the game! For the cut-throat, unpredictable style of game that Grimm Forest is designed to be, it looks like it hits the mark perfectly. Again, don't blame the game if it's style isn't your cup of tea. So for those who are intrigued by this sort of gameplay, the challenge of the game is in SURVIVING the cut-throat actions by your opponents. And then while your busy surviving, still being able to build three houses. That's where the challenge lay, and is why I'll be backing this game. Looks like FUN!

I wonder what the age recommendation is for this game about a child's story... only because from watching only the first third of the video, the game ramps up on tactical depth very quickly! And John, another great, professionaly produced video. Giving Rodney a run for his money!

I'm terrible with understanding rules for board games. Your video was excellent because of the play-through. It was easy to understand and well done. Thank you for supporting folks like me who are rule-confused! Be blessed!

I'd be honest, I'd buy the game for the little houses alone. I mean, the game seems to be a great mix of strategy, resource management, mind games, light take-that and bluffing that fosters great, constant player interactions. BUT THOSE LITTLE HOUSES, THOUGH!

thanks for the great play through. you convinced me to snag a copy of this from kickstarter. It's something I can see enjoying with my 2 eight year olds as well as my wife and adult friends.

Jon, at 42:00, a good strategy appears to have been you could discard Rumplestiltskin to convert all your straw and wood into brick, and then use 3 build actions to completely construct a brick house, thus making it very easy for you to finish the straw roof in one or two turns.

at 49:30 the orange player could discard his friend for 3 straw build walls and get another friend, assuming he had 3 fable cards in his hand. that said your ability to play multiple players and play well is quite good, and you keep the pace fast while being completely clear and understandable.

This looks fantastic! Insta-buy for me, James ☺️

Great run through! I'm sure I'll be watching it again with my husband once the game arrives later this year. :)

This looks great, you did a great job showcasing the game. I'm curious how the game changes in regards to 2 players, as I'll be playing this most of the time with just hubby. But so far it seems yet another game to be backed this month. I love the miniature houses and the figure pigs. I wish the pigs were painted like the houses, but I understand why he aren't.

This game looks absolutely delightful and full of surprises. There's plenty of strategy and choice here. It's not overly complicated and it's shouldn't be. But it's certainly not overly simplistic. I think there is definitely room for some more friends and fables to amp up the replay value. Hopefully these will be some stretch goals. I think Red Riding Hood's power maybe be too strong. Not sure how many wolves are in the deck (three maybe?) but Jon was able to basically empty the deck of wolves which gave him a big advantage. Though he still didn't win. My only other thought was how you win the game. Everyone is putting in a lot of work throughout the game so it seems to me that you should get rewarded for all the building you were able to do instead of just being rewarded for the type of building you were able to make. Is there a reason why a point system wasn't assigned to each completed building and then added up for end game points?

1) is there a limit as to how many "friends" you can have? 2) What is the exact cost of building each part of the houses? I'm guessing 2, 4 and 6? 3)How many fable cards can you draw on your turn? 4)How does drawing "friends" work? Is it you get one each time you build a component of a house? Can you just choose to do it or does something trigger it? If you choose to draw a friend is it that or drawing fables? 5)Are there point values for the houses, when counting up?

Great playthrough, Jon, but I think you put the wooden roof the other way around. Like, the little indented edge should be where the smoke stack is.

This is a great game! Unfortunately, never got it to the table much

Went to buy Love Letter and LOOKED at this game at the store, ahah. I could have gotten it. Seems fun.

Jon, this game has great potential and looks great love your play,tks

I assume that the other players you were randomly playing actions and fables? Because last action, the Orange player should have Wolfed and gone to the brick, locked out the green player entirely since they couldn't gather the last brick they needed and build. Their own actions remain unchanged.

Looking at the comments, I'm not sure I agree with a lot of the other people. To me, this seems like a really quick and fun game of risk and chance. There is pretty good strategy involved as well. I'd be curious to see what the 4 player version looks like, as I expect it would be less strategic and chaotic. But that isn't necessarily a negative. The only bad thing I can say is the price point. This looks like a $25-$30 game. There simply aren't enough components to justify a $50 price point.

Couple of questions: Do you have to tell everyone when you are playing a fable? The fable cards that have effects next turn when do you reveal them? Also can I play another fable on that next turn because I technically played it last turn?

Great runthrough. The game looks beautiful but it's just too random and mean for my taste.

i am confused over player 1 can get so many fable cards ?

what are the measures of the fable cards and the friends cards? thanks

How much is this going to be?

This game would require quite some anger management on my part....

At 11:52 the Orange Player spent 8 wood to buy a base and wall, but didn't get 2 wood back as change.

I'd give a 9 for production, 6 for design. The art and pieces look to be wonderfull. However, I think it's not very smooth and maybe too mean. Stealing resources, getting fewer resources sometimes randomly. (Like the Roar pushing a player out and it being 50/50 to mess with the third person's plans). I also don't see this being a great game at any other player count.

Blind bid for resources? The designer should look at glass road for how that is done right. This is a big pass

man... you really have to slow down your talking pace... English is not my first language and god you talk fast...

The following statement is just my personal opinion based on the last V-log and this video. While I am happy that this channel gets enough attention for the first payed playthroughs to arrive, I am generally doubtful of their effect on the overall quality of the videos. Taking this game as prime example, Jon said so himself in the past, that playing games with a deduction component (here: blind bid on resources) are less than ideal in his setting, as he plays all characters himself. As such, simulating the mind games is next to impossible. Seemingly, this lessened hurdle of which game is shown is the first sacrifice that comes with paid content. Furthermore, even though Jon clearly stated in his V-log that he will not be influenced in his opinion due to the payments, this has been tested by several scientific studies. (Just to give two: Association of Industry Payments to Physicians With the Prescribing of Brand-name Statins in Massachusetts from June 2016 & Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles from 2007) There is a reason pharma industry is severely limited by FDA in what kind of "presents" are allowed to be given to medical professionals nowadays. No one, even if trying to alleviate the bias, can be completely objective! Now, I do believe that opinions matter less in playthroughs compared to reviews of course. Nonetheless, I was always looking forward to get brief opinions in his V-logs on recent games Jon played, which now is also far less valid overall to me. A third point I would like to raise is that with paid playthroughs coming in, Jon has less incentive to choose games that he is personally interested in and as such, even though if he does consciously choose so, there will most likely be less interesting games overall and more sponsored content like this one appears. With the time committed to paid videos, less time is available to create content for potentially more interesting games. To sum it up, I am not keen to already see previous statements broken from Jon's side in the second sponsored video. While I did enjoy the video on Hanamikoji, as the game seems innovative and interesting, I am far less enthused about this one and the future of this channel as a whole. Let us hope, that Jon keeps a very tight eye on the games he chooses to accept as sponsorships.

I must agree with the general sentiment here. The more I learn about its gameplay the more I realize this game is overproduced for a reason: repetitive, lengthy, random, shallow and a bit mean.