“Deep Forest”, “Secret Manor” and “Endless Odyssey” – a review of card games

Deep forest ,  Secret court  and  Infinite Odyssey  of publishing Albi three proposals enabling the creation of original story by myrioram (their tradition dates back to the nineteenth century!). Each item contains 20 cards with illustrations, instructions and a beautiful packaging. The basic variant (adding cards and storytelling) can be played with 2 or more players.

Deep forest

The British Rohan Daniel Eason, known for his love of black and white aesthetics, is responsible for the illustrations for the Deep Forest . This is also his forest in the described position. Myriorams are terrifying (the Grim Reaper card, the Ghost in the cemetery), intrigue (Sleeping Beauty), and the fog of mystery is felt in the air (Ancient ruins). The title can be played in several ways – the four of us decided on the verbal game variant. I dealt the shuffled cards evenly to each of my friends. Then, on separate sheets of paper, we wrote down the number of words equal to the number assigned to the pictures. They had to be used later in the narrative we were creating. Using recorded verbal resources passed on to each other (or randomly), we told a story.

Secret mansion

The illustrations for the Secret Manor , strongly referring to the aesthetics of the 1920s, are due to Lucille Clerc, a recognized French artist. The artist created projects for, among others The V&A Museum, Fortnum & Mason, L’Obs or Farrow Ball. We played this position similarly to the Deep Forest , choosing the Word Game variant. It is worth noting that in this case it is possible, inter alia, select a game in the Murder version. It consists in placing the card with the corpse (Dead Man) in the middle of the table and distributing the remaining cards to the players. Based on this assignment, the most coherent / scary / twisted story is created ending in a murder in an elegant mansion. The story with the most votes wins.

Endless Odyssey

The world of winged horses and vengeful deities was created by Sarah Young. The British woman, who is strongly inspired by the world of Greek myths, created illustrations, among others to the book The Little History of Literature by John Sutherland, and her drawings were published in the American newspaper The New York Times. In this case, we decided to play Endless Stories. Each of us received the same number of cards and made our own history on the basis of them. We diversified our narratives – the opponent decided, among others which card is to be used first in them. Other variations of this game include Word games, Story bingo, and Unpredictable Consequences. In the case of the last variant, the selected cards change the course of the game. Its time is about 10-25 minutes.