Amanite: Too Pretty to Be Truly Nasty

I brought Amanite back from Essen 2025, in that pile of boxes you grab "just to see," without really knowing what you'll do with them. In the end, it found its table at my neighbours' place. They play a little, without being die-hards, and Alix actually forages for her own mushrooms in the woods. She was sold on the theme before we even opened the rulebook: Roxane Campoy's artwork, painted in gouache, spoke to her directly about her forest walks. I shared that visual crush in the moment. And that is exactly my main gripe with Amanite: it seduced me more sitting on the table than once the game was actually underway.

Publisher: Spiral Editions · Distributor: Blackrock Games · Designer: Thanos Vasof · Illustrator: Roxane Campoy · Players: 2 to 4 · Duration: 30 min · Age: 10+ · Released: autumn 2025

A Forest Painted in Gouache

Let's start with what hits you first, because it's the game's real selling point. Spiral Editions, the Toulouse-based house behind District Noir, Boréal and then Présages, built its reputation on carefully crafted objects, and Amanite is no exception. Roxane Campoy's illustrations are done entirely in gouache, and you can tell: you get the grain of the paper, the thickness of the brushstroke, mushrooms that have the presence of a naturalist's plate rather than a game icon. At a time when so many boxes look alike, this one has a genuine identity.

The theme follows the same path. Mushroom foraging, on paper, can sound lukewarm, almost old-fashioned. In practice, it's warm and a touch gourmand, and it sets a woodland mood that landed well around the table. At my neighbours', the box started the conversation before the first draw, which is already a service rendered. The only material downside, and everyone points to it, is the format: the box is far too big for what it holds. Shelf-space obsessives will grit their teeth.

Split to Better Trap

Beneath that visual softness, Amanite weds three ideas: worker placement, a healthy dose of deduction, and the famous "I split, you choose." A game runs over three rounds. On your turn, you place one of your workers on a forest tile. If you arrive alone on the tile, you help yourself in peace. If you join an opponent already settled there, that's when it gets interesting: you split the mushrooms into two lots, and it's the other player who picks their pile first. You split, they choose. All the flavour lies in how you cut things up to nudge your opponent toward the pile you want to leave them.

If you've played the "cut and choose" of a Hanamikoji, you know that tension: offer without giving, tempt without sacrificing yourself. Amanite adds its layer of deduction on top. At the start of the game, you know the value of three mushrooms, but not which is which; you gather clues along the way, and above all you read the other players' moves to piece together what they know. At times the experience brushes up against a little spy game: everyone advances masked, trying to deduce from a rival's behaviour what has value and what doesn't. The final scoring, for its part, stays very simple, and that's a strength: the game runs without dead time toward a clean point count.

It has to be said, the first game is disorienting. You flounder a bit until the final tally, the time it takes to grasp where the real decision hides. It isn't difficulty, it's non-obviousness: nothing is spontaneous, and that's by design.

Where It Falls Short

This is also where the shoe pinches for a slightly gamer crowd. The base mode is too gentle. The publisher told me as much, plainly, at Essen: for regulars, you have to move up to the advanced modes for the game to show its teeth. Amanite does pack several variants, including a distinctly more biting one where toxic mushrooms can flat-out eliminate you if you pile up more poisons than antidotes. On paper, the depth is there. In practice, it means the box asks you to go looking for it, and in a family setup you stay with a pleasant game that lacks real bite.

And that's my gut verdict, after several games: likeable, well made, but I wasn't won over. You play it gladly, you're in no rush to deal again. On my shelf, there are plenty of boxes I'll reach for before this one. That takes nothing away from its qualities as an object or from its quiet intelligence, but the urge to replay, for me, never caught.

Verdict

Amanite is a handsome game, clever without showing off, carried by an art direction that alone is worth the look. It hits the mark for a family table or for casual players who enjoy a lovely presentation and a short ruleset. For anyone after a brain-teaser that renews itself night after night, you'll need to aim for the advanced modes, and even there, I'm not sure it settles in for the long haul.

I mostly see it as a box you keep within reach for its charm, the one you pull out in autumn, when mushrooms are back at the market and a fricassée is simmering nearby. In that context, precise and a little ritual, it does exactly what you ask of it. No more, no less.

Rating: 6.5/10. Beautiful, honest, well built, but it didn't make me want to come back to it often.