Nature board game Cascadia is getting a series of flip-and-roll-and-write spin-offs

Cascadia is expanding its award-winning series of nature-themed board games with a pair of flip-and-roll-and-write titles that each focus on a different biome of the Pacific Northwest environment.

Cascadia: Rolling comprises two standalone upcoming releases with similar rules but slightly unique content. Think Railroad Ink’s several different coloured editions, but themed around rivers and hilly prairies, instead. Where Cascadia encompassed the breadth of fauna and geography that the PNW offers, these smaller titles retain Beth Sobel’s gorgeous, naturalistic illustrations but tighten their focus.

Designed by Randy Flynn to support between one and eight players (when you combine both versions), the group will roll dice and collect wildlife and nature tokens needed to complete the requirements laid out on Habitat cards. Once completed, these habitats will begin filling the puzzle laid out on each player’s Environment sheet. Everyone competes to complete their sheet with the most points possible, but individual bonuses and extra challenges will keep the point totals fluctuating until the very end of the session.

Players can use specific actions to manipulate the results of the dice and score combos using what publisher Flatout Games calls “dynamic completion cards”. Depending on whether the group is using Rolling Rivers or Rolling Hills, some extra rules and restrictions will affect your habitat-cultivation efforts.

Both editions will contain a Central Die used to determine the round’s unique rules and four environment sheets tailored to portray a natural region of the PNW - Flatout Games says the environments boast particular gameplay elements. Other implements include 30 environment cards and 8 unique habitat cards illustrated by Sobel.

Flynn designed the original Cascadia board game, which went on to win an absolutely mess of awards in 2022, as well as the Landmarks expansion released earlier this year - this box adds natural landmarks to the core game and enough extra components to extend the player count up to six. Flatout Games refers to Cascadia: Rolling as a series, perhaps implying that Rivers and Hills is but the first stab at representing Cascadia’s five key biomes.

Cascadia: Rolling will launch a Kickstarter campaign in early 2024 ahead of a currently unknown release date.