Game Objective

In "Forest Shuffle: Exploration," you embark on a journey to explore the forest, discover new caves, and find species from all over the world. This solo variant allows you to play against Anna, whose actions are controlled by an Automa card deck. Your goal is to complete a chosen challenge, meeting both a specific goal and a minimum score (bronze, silver, or gold) at the end of the game. Anna does not score; the focus is on your own score and fulfilling the challenge requirements.

Setup

Solo game setup follows the rules of the base game, with some modifications:

1. Card Removal: Return cards from the draw deck to the game box, as per the 2-player variant. The number of cards to be removed depends on the expansions you are using:
   • Base Game: 30 cards
   • Alpine: 55 cards
   • Alpine + Woodland Edge: 90 cards
2. Winter Card: You will need only one winter card. Shuffle it with the last 10 cards of the draw deck.
3. Starting Hand and Clearing: Draw 6 cards for your hand and place 5 other cards face up in the clearing.
4. Automa Deck: Shuffle the 20 Automa cards and place them face down to form the Automa deck.
5. Challenge Selection: Choose a challenge and decide which level you want to achieve: bronze, silver, or gold. This defines your goal and minimum score.
6. First Turn: You always start the game.
7. Special Case - Reforestation Challenge: When playing the Reforestation challenge with both expansions, place a random Water Vole in your starting hand BEFORE removing cards from the draw deck. Then, when drawing your starting hand, draw only 5 additional cards, for a total of 6 cards in hand.
8. Special Caves (if applicable): If using the special caves from the expansion, replace the base game caves with them. After dealing 6 cards to everyone (in a setup involving this, though this is solo), place the 5 cave cards in the center of the table. In reverse turn order, each player (in this case, you) chooses a cave and places it in front of them. The remaining caves are returned to the box.
9. New and Rare Cards (if applicable): If using new and rare cards, shuffle them with the other cards during setup. Then, return the required number of cards to the game box (based on player count) plus one card for each new and rare card used. For a more even distribution, you may deal 2 random new and rare cards to each player at the start of the game, starting with 8 cards in hand.

Gameplay Flow

The game progresses with you and Anna taking turns. Your turns are performed normally, following the base game rules. On Anna's turn, the flow is as follows:

1. Reveal Automa Card: Reveal the top card of the Automa deck.
2. Anna's Action: Perform the action indicated on the card for Anna:
   • Add Cards to the Clearing: Place the indicated number of cards from the draw deck into the clearing. Always add cards to the right of any cards already present in the clearing.
   • Remove Cards from the Clearing: Return the indicated number of cards from the clearing to the game box. The arrow on the card indicates which direction you should remove these cards from. If there are fewer cards in the clearing than Anna needs to remove, remove as many cards as possible.
   • Remove Card from the Draw Deck: Look at the top card of the draw deck and return it to the game box.
3. Automa Card Discard: At the end of Anna's turn, place the Automa card in an Automa discard pile. If the Automa deck is empty at this point, shuffle the Automa discard pile to form a new Automa deck.
4. Closing Gaps: Regardless of whose turn it is, always close any gaps in the clearing by moving the cards together, without changing their order.

Actions and How to Play

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends immediately when the winter card is drawn. At this point, proceed to scoring.

1. Total Points: Sum the points in your forest. Anna collects no points.
2. Challenge Verification: To complete a challenge, you must meet both the specific challenge goal and the previously defined minimum score (bronze, silver, or gold) at the end of the game.
   • Example: To achieve bronze in the Bat Forest challenge, there must be 4 or more bats in your forest at the end of the game, and you must score at least 200 points in total.
3. Progress Tracking: If you pass the challenge, you may place it behind the corresponding divider card (bronze, silver, or gold) to save your progress for future games.
4. Specific Scoring Adjustments:
   • Lindens: To score 3 points per Linden, you need to have at least 3 Lindens in your forest.
   • Great Spotted Woodpecker: To score 10 points for the Great Spotted Woodpecker, you need to have at least 10 trees in your forest.
5. Special Caves (if applicable): Each special cave still scores 1 point for each card in it at the end of the game. Additionally, they may provide extra points or a permanent effect:
   • Collectors’ Cave: Each card in your cave scores 2 instead of 1.
   • Bat Cave: Each bat in your forest scores 3 additional points, even if you do not have 3 different bats.
   • Lonely Cave: If there are no cards in your cave at the end of the game, you score 5. Otherwise, you score the normal 1 per card in your cave.
   • Storage Cave: Once per turn, when you place at least one card in this cave, immediately draw one card from the draw deck.
   • Smugglers’ Cave: Each time you trigger a bonus, place one of the paid cards in this cave.
6. Specific Card Clarifications for Scoring:
   • Brimstone: Only if you play with all three expansions will you have the chance to see 8 different butterflies in play.
   • Fire Salamander: Even with 4 Fire Salamanders in your forest, you still receive only 25 points in total.
   • Marsh Cinquefoil: The sun and moon symbols have no effect.
   • Mistletoe: When Mistletoe is placed on a tree, this tree is flipped face down (to the sapling side). It counts as a sapling for the rest of the game. If played on a sapling, the sapling remains a sapling.
   • Moor Birch, Turkey Oak, and O Christmas Tree: These are not considered new tree species, but rather a Birch, Oak, and Silver Fir, respectively. They may, however, score differently than their counterparts.
   • Palm Tree: This is a new tree species with its own tree symbol.
   • Red Panda: Bamboo is not a tree, so the tree symbol has no effect.
   • Say’s Firefly: Counts as a firefly. Even with 5 fireflies in the forest, you still receive only 20 points in total.

Tips for Winning

• Focus on the Chosen Challenge: From the start of the game, keep the challenge you chose and the scoring level (bronze, silver, gold) you want to achieve in mind. This will guide your decisions on which cards to play and which objectives to prioritize in your forest.
• Clearing Management: Pay attention to Anna's actions in the clearing. She can add or remove cards, which affects your drawing options. Plan your turns to take advantage of the cards that appear and prevent important cards from being removed.
• Strategic Use of Special Caves: If you are using special caves, choose one that complements your challenge strategy. For example, the Bat Cave is excellent if your challenge involves collecting bats, while the Storage Cave can help with card drawing if you need more options.