A moonlit mushroom meander

Designer: Brent Povis | Publisher: Pegasus

Two player card games about the right size to take to the pub are my forte. It’s amazing what we can achieve without even needing playing pieces or a board. The cards of Fungi transform the table into the forest floor beneath your feet as you venture out to try to collect matching sets of various types of mushrooms, store them in your baskets, and cook them on your camping stove.

Mushrooms have, on the whole, passed me by. I’ll eat a generic mushroom, but I’ve heard the funky types are all the rage these days. A radio DJ the other day talked about her standard order at the local coffee shop being a Mushroom Matcha Latte, and I am still none the wiser. This game is a gentle venture into to extensive world of the mushroom. The cards show the Latin names of the mushrooms, which might be educational if you’re paying enough attention. If you’re not, then in the same way it feels impossible to pronounce the names of characters in fantasy novels, it can be hard to recognise the different cards you’re looking at. It’s worth noting that in the alternate version of the game, Morels, the English names are used. There are other slight differences, including the artwork, and the Fungi version includes the number of each type of card in the pack.