Your objective is to peacefully unify the kingdom of Northwood through conversations with their rulers. Over eight rounds, you must visit eight animal fiefs and engage their rulers in dialogue (tricks). Each ruler's suit represents the trump for that fief. Each ruler also requires you to win an exact number of tricks to join your alliance, so the game gets harder as your options dwindle.

You start with four allies, each with an ability that you can use once per visit. These abilities can make you draw, discard, or otherwise manipulate your hand to help you hit the target score. Once you've won a ruler over, you can pull them in to substitute temporarily for one of your allies, if you need a more specific set of abilities to tackle the harder fiefs.

With three difficulty levels and 24 rulers (12 used per game), For Northwood! offers a lot of ability combinations and a new puzzle every time.