Kids’ Play Time Can Be Weird – Fort Review

Boardgames have had many themes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game where the theme is the rise and fall of friendships when you were a kid.

Not to mention playing around the neighbourhood, building a tree fort, and just passing the hours running around outside.

Now I have!

Fort is a game that encompasses all of that, using deckbuilding mechanics but where you can actually lose cards if you don’t use them.

Designed by Grant Rodiek with artwork by the great Kyle Ferrin, the game was published by Leder Games in 2020.

It plays 2-4 players, and you’re all kids trying to navigate life, attracting more kids to your entourage, and maybe just losing them if you don’t play with them.

Kids have feelings too.

Fort is a deckbuilding game in that one of your actions during your turn is to recruit a kid card, either from the Park or from somebody’s Yard because they had to discard them.

That seems a trifle harsh, doesn’t it?

That’s the thing, though.

On your turn, you’re playing a card, and you can add cards of the same suit (in a way too cute manner, the suits are crowns, skateboards, glue, books, or shovels) in order to strengthen its action.

The top action is a public action that you can do, and your fellow players can also follow it by discarding a card of the suit you played.

The bottom action is one that only you can do.

This mix of private and public actions makes the game shine.

Doc will let you put a card from your hand into your Lookout (which is where you place cards to always have their suit available for your actions), and anybody else can do it as well.

However, only you will get points for how many cards are in your Lookout.

But you only get that one action. You can then recruit another kid to your gang, but then all of the cards in your hand get discarded to your Yard.

You didn’t play with them, so now they’re free agents and any other kid can bring them into their gang.

If any aren’t recruited by your next turn, they then go to your discard pile.

I think this is the only deckbuilding game I know of where you can actually lose cards from your deck so easily (without an attack card of some kind).

You’re collecting two resources, Pizza and Toys, and you can only keep 4 of each, though you can keep some in your Pack if you play (or follow) an action that lets you put stuff from your Stuff to your Pack.

But your Pack (and your Lookout) can only hold so much!

They can hold 1 resource/card plus one for each level of your Fort.

The building of your Fort is one of the goals of the game.

At the bottom of your player board is your Fort, and it starts at level 0.

If you play (or follow) a Fort action, then you can spend the appropriate (and ever-increasing) amount of resources to raise your Fort level.

When you get to Level 1, you can look through and choose one of the Made-Up Rules, which are basically endgame scoring cards.

At level 2, you can choose one of the face-up Perks, which will give you an ability that you can use throughout the game.

Some of these are quite powerful, and essentially they are rule-breaking cards.

Like Copy Cat allowing you to discard two cards to follow an action (and thus use it at 2-strength).

Play continues until either somebody reaches 25 points, they improve their Fort to level 5, or the Kid deck runs out.

You get points for your Made-Up Rule and your Fort level, and whoever has the most wins!

I’ve enjoyed my three plays of Fort, but for some reason it just seems to drag after a while as you get near the end.

The box says it’s a 20-40 minute game, but our plays have taken an hour (other than my 2-player play, which took 40 minutes).

This could very well be a “me” problem (or “us,” I guess, with my play group), but I’m not sure it should be dragging like it does.

The artwork is phenomenal, with Ferrin’s traditional touch but also drawn in a kid-like fashion.

I do like that you have two Best Friends, who will never leave you (though you can trash them if you wish). They never get discarded to your Yard, instead going directly to your discard pile.

They all have the same actions on them, so while which player board you choose will indicate which Best Friends you get, there’s really no difference.

The whole Yard mechanic is such a great one too, with you having to face the possibility that you’re going to lose a great card if you can’t actually use it this turn.

Fort actions are very valuable, but if you have a card with a Fort action and you can’t improve your Fort, then they’re going to the Yard and will likely be snapped up before your turn comes around again.

But maybe somebody else will be in the same boat?

The game turns begin to flow really well once you get used to the game, which is another reason I don’t understand the dragging feeling as the game goes on.

Turns become fairly quick, with you playing a card, doing its actions (and letting others follow if they can), recruiting a card, then discarding.

The rulebook, however, isn’t laid out the best, with some questions forcing me to go to Boardgame Geek to get them answered.

I also really enjoy the Lookout mechanic, where you can play cards to it so that you will always have their suit available for an action

In a game where many actions require you to play multiple cards to strengthen the benefit of the action, it’s nice to have some built in as well.

Overall, I think Fort is a very good game, but it just misses great for me, mainly due to the lag.

If we can manage to get rid of that lag in our future plays, then it would likely move up much higher in my estimation.

Still, the theme comes out really well in this game, with you being kids forming your playgroups.

Playgroups are notoriously ever-changing as somebody falls out of favour, or becomes the new hotness because they can help you do something you really want to do.

Kids are fickle, and Fort nicely illustrates that.

Boardgamers can be fickle as well, but that’s something that we just have to deal with.

(This review was written after 3 plays)