Canopy is a two-player board game about tropical climes from the creator of The Grimm Forest
Tree what you can grow.
Nurture an entire ecosystem of flora and fauna in Canopy, a two-player board game from Tim Eisner - the maker of fairy-tale building game The Grimm Forest.
Rainforests are places of immense beauty and a stunning variety of life and in Canopy players get to develop their very own versions by drafting and playing various cards. A game for two players, Canopy tasks players with growing an amazing ecosystem of plants and animals - all whilst ensuring that a delicate balance is maintained between all the life occupying their rainforest.
From the colourful toucan bird to the emerald boa, each card in Canopy can serve a useful purpose in a player’s rainforest, such as increasing the number of points gained for every type of plant played adjacent to it. Deciding which cards to take and play is a significant element of this tableau building game, with the potential for victory or defeat possibly hinging on a single card.
In this upcoming board game, players take turns to choose from three sets of cards called growth piles. After picking up a pile, that player can decide to either add all the cards therein to their tableau, or place the pile back down before adding another card from their own hand on-top. As a game of Canopy progresses, these piles will inevitably increase in card size - with players having to choose the best possible moment to take an entire pile.
However, players will have to be cautious as there are cards that can cause a number of disasters to spring up in their rainforest. From raging fires, terrible diseases and unrelenting drought, these cards reduce the scoring potential of a player’s tableau - so must be taken at the player’s own risk.
Whichever player scores the largest total points within their ecosystem becomes the winner of Canopy.
As well as designing Canopy and The Grimm Forest, Eisner has also co-created the party spin-off game The Grimm Masquerade and Wonderland’s War - a dark take on the world of Alice in Wonderland.
Canopy is being published by Weird City Games, the company responsible for titles such as insect simulator March of the Ants and the social deduction party game Little Pig, which were both created in part by Eisner.
Weird City Games is also partnering with the non-profit organisation Tree Sisters - which focuses on tropical reforestation - in order to produce copies of Canopy sustainably, with a tree being planted for every Kickstarter pledge copy purchased.
The Kickstarter campaign for Canopy is currently live until July 10th, with a pledge of $19/£16 getting a copy of the core game that’s estimated to arrive sometime in June 2021.