Forage – designed by Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich, with graphics by Shawn and Dylan Mangini and illustrations by Beth Sobel – is the latest in the Flatout Games/AEG small box series. It’s a puzzly, cozy, roll-and-write game that thrives on cascading combos as players build out a tableau of dry-erase cards.
Each player takes on the role of a forager, walking through the Pacific Northwest to collect, store, and gift items. Each round starts by rolling the forage dice, revealing a journey tile, and choosing a combination of dice to explore, store, give gifts, and earn bonuses along the way to power up future actions. Each turn expands the tableau with more pantry cards, gift-giving cards, and exploration cards.
I was reminded of Super Mega Lucky Box, a Phil Walker-Harding gem from 2021 that distills the chain reaction-style roll-and-write to its essence. Forage builds on those core concepts and adds a little depth and theme, resulting in a rewarding puzzle.
Visual Accessibility
Unfortunately, Forage did not work for me as a colorblind player. I experienced more frustration than fun while trying to overcome the unintentional barriers posed by the color palette and the lack of supportive information. It violates the first rule of color-vision accessibility: Do not use color alone to distinguish gameplay-required components. In situations where some support is provided, it was not clearly described on the table or in the rulebook.
One important caveat: Forage has zero hidden information, so in multiplayer games, those with color vision or other visual limitations can ask others for assistance
Forage Dice
Forage dice have 6 faces, each with a different forageable item that is easy to distinguish from the others… so far so good. What is not described anywhere is that these 6 faces also have 3 different-colored backgrounds, essentially creating 3 pairs of items.
- Brown: morel mushroom & procini mushroom
- Green: stinging nestle & fiddlehead
- Purple: salmonberry & huckleberry
I later discovered that these 3 colors are extremely important throughout the game, but I could not find them described in the other game components or the rules.
Pantry Cards
Giving credit where it is due, the team made an effort to double-code the jars on the pantry cards by color, and the order remains consistent (green on top, then purple, then brown). Unfortunately, this code is not described in the rulebook or a player aid, so without knowing the colors, I could not clearly distinguish them from one another.
Fellow reviewer Arwen Kathke (see Arwen’s contributions to Colorblind Games and listen to her podcast, Cardboard Time) reached out during the preview period with the same questions I ran into. After an initial confusion, she “cracked the code” and shared it with me.
“I just got the prototype copy today and found that while the Jars for the “Store” action had different shaped labels on them, I still needed the color to determine what the icons are that correspond to them… … …I think I got it. There’s six symbols, but grouped into three colors. It took me a good 45 minutes to figure that out.”
This image became the go-to accessibility aid for the remainder of my plays. Thanks, Arwen!
Gift-giving Cards
Unfortunately, the gift-giving cards were a bigger problem than the pantry cards. As shown here, the cards introduce a 4th color, which my smartphone accessibility tool identified as pink, adding confusion to my confusion.
After seeking additional support, I learned that the leftmost color is grey. The other colors were a challenge. I first attempted to match the top-to-bottom order of the pantry cards (green, purple, brown) to the left-to-right order here. That was unsuccessful; the color order on gift-giving cards is not consistent from card to card.
Exploration Cards
No concerns here! This is a good time to point out the excellent iconography, which is clear and well-sized. It’s a challenge to pack so much information into a roll-and-write game, so seeing easy-to-read icons is great!
Journey Tiles
While not as problematic as other parts of Forage, the journey tiles could pose an issue for some color vision or low-vision players – especially those who may have both limitations. These were fine for me.
The pattern is just different enough that it won’t be an issue for most gamers. But in the spirit of double-coding, an additional little something would be nice.
Support from the Publisher
I shared my concerns with Flatout Games, and Shawn was open to discussing the issues and seeking solutions. As he explains:
“As you know, we typically add double-coding to all elements of the game to make them accessible. In the final graphics stage of this game, we unfortunately missed the double-coding on the Gift Cards and didn’t explain or clarify the double-coding on the Pantry Cards. We’ll make an update to the files so future print runs will be accessible.”
Player Aid
As part of our conversations, Shawn and Dylan put together this initial mockup of an accessibility-focused player aid. Shawn described, “I know this isn’t a perfect solution, but it will hopefully allow folks to map the different colors/symbols together.” I find it a helpful starting point to support this first printing.
Since the game is already in production, additional changes and additions will have to wait for a potential future printing, but I appreciate the effort to make this available, if only digitally.
Accessibility Modifications
Since Forage is not fully accessible out of the box, even with the digital player aid, I developed a set of modifications to my copy of the game to make it playable, including solo when I won’t have other players to help me. Consistent with my other modifications (see all published Colorblind Games Mods), I take a minimalist approach, adding as few markings as necessary (via Sharpie, my accessibility tool of choice, sponsorship pending) to distinguish the colors from one another.
Journey Tiles
In the interest of full colorblind-friendliness, I added a small dot at the center of the paths on the final-round journey tiles to make them stand out more clearly from the “regular” journey tiles.
Dice, Pantry Cards, Gift-Giving Cards
The primary issue with the dice, pantry cards, and gift-giving cards is distinguishing among green, purple, brown, and grey, since double-coding is either missing or not explained in the rulebook. To keep things relatively simple, I used this color code to mark up the dice and cards:
- Green: short line
- Purple: circular dot
- Brown: (none)
- Grey: diagonal tick mark
The dice were simple, adding horizontal lines under the green faces and dots to the purple faces.
Pantry cards offered a nice “white space” area on the far left, so I added a vertical line for green and a dot for purple in their respective sections.
For gift-giving cards, I did not add markings for the spots with specific foraging requirements (e.g, green fiddlehead or purple huckleberry). I focused on the color-only “wild” requirements, indicated by a question mark. For green and purple, I maintained the horizontal line and dot, each placed below the colored square. For the grey (any color) wild spaces, I used the small space above the number to add a small tick mark, separating it from the others by shape and placement.
Conclusion
As published, Forage is unplayable for me without outside help due to unintended accessibility barriers. I enjoyed the gameplay once I could get into the flow. There was an obvious intent to provide accessibility support, which Shawn and Dylan continued to do after we discussed my concerns.
If you are comfortable making similar modifications to your copy of Forage, I can recommend it as a fun puzzle that combines several elements into a nice package. As of this writing, you can find Forage via the post-crowdfunding pledge manager here: Flatout Games 2026 Releases.
- Colorblind Games received a pre-release copy from the publisher for this review.
- I have served as a volunteer playtester and rules editor for several Flatout Games and AEG titles (see About Me for details).
- Image Credits: Box art, bottom image: Flatout Games/AEG. Two as captioned: Arwen Kathke. All others: Brian Chandler.
