Leaf

Fall brings a welcome shift from summer’s blazing heat, along with back-to-school routines and the vibrant colors of changing leaves. As we enjoy autumn’s outdoor festivities, the season also signals that winter is on the way. Animals begin preparing by gathering food for hibernation, while fallen leaves accumulate on the forest floor, enriching the ecosystem.

In Leaf, designed by Tim Eisner and illustrated by Angela Rizza, players become the wind, strategically placing leaf tiles to grow mushrooms, collect animals, and advance the season. The player who contributes the most to the renewal of the forest (measured in acorn points) wins the game. Leaf is published by Weird City Games for 1-4 players, ages 8 and up.

Setup

Place the Tree board, Leaf Mat, and Animal Mat near the play area, leaving space for the leaf pile. Players choose a color, take their mushroom tokens, and put their squirrel at the base of the Tree. Deal leaf cards based on player count, reveal animal cards, and prepare the leaf tile piles with starter tiles in the center. Finally, place the Season Marker, acorns, and sun tokens within reach.

Gameplay

Players perform the following five steps on their turn: choose a leaf, place the leaf, check for mushroom reactions, take leaf actions, and optionally advance the season.

1. Choose A Leaf

Choose a leaf card from your hand and take the matching leaf tile from the top of its pile. If you start your turn with no cards, draw two cards and take a -3 acorn (points) penalty, then play a card.

You may discard a second card that matches the one you played to Leaf Boost. This allows you to place a baby mushroom on the tile you’re about to add to the forest.

2. Place The Leaf

Place your chosen leaf tile into the forest, connecting it to at least two tips of leaves already in play. Each valid connection must align with a leaf tip, indicated by a single leaf icon. The stem also counts as a connectable tip. Each connected tip triggers a leaf action in the next step—gain an animal, draw a card, collect sun, grow mushrooms, or climb the tree.

3. Mushroom Reactions

After placing your leaf, check whether any adjacent leaves trigger reactions. If an adjacent leaf has another player’s largest mushroom, that player gains a sun token.

4. Take Leaf Actions

For each tip of your placed leaf that touches another leaf, take the corresponding action based on the connected tip’s leaf color. Resolve these actions in any order.

• Green – Draw one leaf card. There’s no hand limit.
• Yellow – Gain one sun token. You can hold any number of sun tokens but may only spend three per turn.
• Brown – Move your squirrel up one space on the tree and gain the shown reward. If you reach the top, gain one acorn; you can’t move higher.
• Red – Grow a mushroom. Either place a baby mushroom on a leaf that doesn’t have one, or flip one of your baby mushrooms to an adult.
• Orange – Take one animal card from the animal mat or draw from the deck. Place it in your forest above your player aid. If the card shows a sun or acorn, gain that bonus too.

5. Advance the Season

Once per turn you may spend three sun tokens to advance the season marker on the animal board and gain the indicated number of acorns.

Frost: if the season marker crosses a Frost line, every player must immediately choose one type of animal to hibernate. Move all animals of that type from your Forest to your Winter Den (below your player board).

Only hibernated animals will score at the end of the game.

Winter is Coming!

Players continue taking turns until either the season marker crosses the Winter line or three leaf piles are depleted. When Winter begins, it does not trigger an immediate Frost. Instead, players continue taking turns until everyone has played an equal number of turns. Then, resolve one final Frost before ending the game.

Final Scoring

At the end of the game, players earn additional acorns by scoring in the following categories:

• Hibernated animals: Score based on the number of each type in your Winter Den: 1:1, 2:3, 3:6, and +1 point for each beyond four.
• Connected mushrooms: Score for each connected group of adult mushrooms: 1:1, 2:3, 3:8, and +1 point for each beyond four.
• Tree position: The squirrel highest on the tree scores six points, second highest scores three.
• Leftover resources: For every two leaf cards and/or sun tokens, score one point (you can mix and match).

The player with the most acorns wins!

Impressions

At the time I’m writing this review, it’s early August and the summer heat has been relentless. Playing Leaf reminded me that cooler days are coming—days made for warm drinks, soft blankets, and cozy board games. That’s exactly the vibe Leaf delivers. Its charming artwork, thoughtful mechanics, and tactile components create a warm, inviting experience.

I’ve always been a fan of tile-laying games (looking at you, Carcassonne), and that’s what initially drew me in. Instead of building a grid-style layout, you create an organic forest floor filled with brightly colored leaves that come together to form a final board state that truly looks like a piece of art.

The charming card art certainly didn’t hurt either. But what I enjoyed most was the satisfying sequence of actions you can trigger with a well-placed leaf. With the right placement, a single leaf can grant you a bunch of actions, letting you grab animal cards, grow mushrooms, and climb the tree all in the same turn. Every turn feels meaningful, and setting up a high-impact turn is always is a treat.

Thoughtful Decision Making

In Leaf, players have a strong sense of agency in every decision they make. Every leaf placement can open up opportunities not just for you, but for your opponents. For example, placing a leaf with multiple tips turned outward might give another player the chance to gain several actions together. In a 3-4 player game, those multi-point spots disappear quickly and may not be available by your next turn.

I learned this lesson the hard way during my first play. I focused too much on grabbing animal and leaf cards and overlooked the risk of placing leaves next to those with my opponent’s mushrooms. Several times, I handed them free sun tokens, which they used to cash in for high value acorn tokens from the Season track. That mistake cost me the game.

Fun For Families

Leaf is an ideal choice for a family game night with the kiddos or your gamer pals. Its easy to teach and after a couple turns things will click. There’s also no take-that, making it great to play with younger ones. Leaf features simple scoring throughout. So, you’ll want to balance scoring in many different ways, not only concentrating on getting critters to their winter dens.

In the absence of other players, Leaf still holds up well. The included solo mode offers a strong leaf placement challenge against the North Wind, the game’s automa opponent, along with a list of achievements that keep you coming back for more.

My only ding against the game is that two of the player colors look similar at a glance. Both use shades of orange for their mushroom tokens and squirrel pieces, which caused some early confusion. Thankfully, the unique mushroom icons helped us sort it out quickly.

If you’re looking for a nature-inspired game with clever gameplay, beautiful table presence, or just something cozy to curl up with, Leaf delivers.

Pick it up directly from Weird City Games, from Amazon, or ask for it at your friendly local game store.

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Weird City Games provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Leaf for this review.

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