Flip and write board games are some of my favorites, and every time I see a new one I cannot wait to get it to the table and give it a spin. But what if we combine flip and write with polyomino pieces and see what kind of game comes out the other side? Well today I’ve got just the game to see how well these come together as we take an early look at Marsh Hallow!
Marsh Hallow is a new flip and write game coming to Kickstarter from For Why Games on September 9th 2025. It is designed by Kervin Queliza and Kelley Reece with illustration from Kelley Reece. It plays 1-4 players in 45-60 mins.
Overview:
In Marsh Hallow players work together on their own boards to rescue lost family members and stop the Pyre Festival from happening. Using unique polyomino shapes and cooperative play, players try to win or lose together before The Ritual occurs!
Gameplay:
In Marsh Hallow, players will each take a Map, Dashboard sheet, and pencil to start. There are 25 animal cards, each with 2 unique shapes that players will pick one of them each round to draw. These are shuffled before play begins.
To begin, players take 3 cards and circle the 3 family members depicted on the cards. These are the 3 you need to rescue by the end of the game. Keep one and return the rest to the deck. Then 17 cards are pulled and create the deck, each representing a night progressing towards the end.
The card you kept is your first night, pick one of the shapes and draw it over one family member. This starts you saving your first family member of the three you must save for your play to be successful.
Each turn when the top card is drawn, players will pick one of the shapes to draw on their Map. Subsequent pieces must be drawn at corners connecting to any other piece but they can never touch orthogonally. Players can also choose instead to use the Spirit of the Hallow and shade in one space on their dashboard in a 2×3 shape. Each time it is used, shade another space and have one less piece for the shape you use.
Each of the shapes have unique colors which can unlock a one time use per player on their Dashboard of an Elemental Ability. Announce your activivation and shade in that column. This will unlock a power for that turn that all players will benefit from. For example, if you use Quake, pound the table three times and yell “QUAKE”! and players will be able to move one square to a new location on the shape they picked this round.
Covering a Mallow of any type will require one water, and the only way to get and use those is on the storage of your water guns and balloons on the Dashboard. Each player begins with one loaded water guns with four water drops in it. Each time you cover a Mallow you must have a balloon or water drop to spend. You can cover tents to gain more guns, water balloons and refills on your guns. You can also cover a pond to completely refill one row of all the empty guns you have in stock. So the more guns you unlock, the more water you gain when you reach a pond.
The Hurricane Gun can be collected at all three ponds instantly gaining you a ten water canon. Slingshots can be used to eliminate Monks around a fire anywhere on your board or to throw a piece to another player’s board.
Finally in the last phase of the day the Pyre grows stronger based on the Monks still worshipping around flowers on your board. Shade in 5 petals for every circle of 4 complete and 1 petal for each individual Monk not in a full group.
This continues for 18 rounds and at the end the game win or loss is determined by these factors. Did you successfully:
*Rescue 3 family members each
*Impede the Monks from intensifying the Pyre’s flame
*Save enough water to extinguish the Pyre
*Cover at least one of the brick spaces at the base of the Pyre staircase
If all goals are met, the team wins! You can score it individually or as a team to determine the win. There are ways to ramp the difficulty up and down as well in different game modes included in the rulebook.
Impressions:
Marsh Hollow is the type of board game that is unique in a number of different ways. It brings a certain style and flair to it in a mechanism that I really enjoy, flip and write and adds such a fun twist and depth of story that I have never seen in a game like this. The whole idea that we are playing cooperative is such a cool concept in the way it is implemented overall in the game even though we are each manipulating and moving along our own board.
Oftentimes cooperative games turn me off because there is a pilot or quarterback who takes the reins and does all the activity, while you are stuck waiting and for him to say what to do on your next turn. Here, we each have our own sheet and make our own moves with a shared common card that we use to determine what we do. The cooperative nature of sharing abilities so that one person kicks a special ability, everyone gets to use it, or even being able to slingshot a piece to another player is such a novel and fun way to really pull in the teamwork of the rescue on this game.
I especially love the art, it’s whimsical and cute and fits such a fun theme in the game of these marshmallows trying to save their brothers and sisters from the cult with the help of so many fun Woodland creature friends. The board is bright and easy to follow all of the iconography that’s based in the game as well.
I have been able to play this at all player counts and really enjoyed the experience. It works as well at 2 as it does 4, and even has fun ways to raise or lower the difficulty level to make it more challenging or more family friendly. I tried it at the hard mode and definitely saw how much more of a challenge it was to get through for our team.
Check out the Kickstarter now and see if you can band up with the right group of Woodland heroes, fill your water guns and stop the Pyre as you attempt to save your family in Marsh Hallow! You can find all the details for the Kickstarter here: Marsh Hallow Kickstarter
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