Throughout a game of Faraway, you will play a row of 8 cards in front of you, from left to right. These cards represent the regions you will come across while exploring the lands. Characters on these cards will grant you victory points if you later fulfil the conditions they demand. At the end of the game, you walk back the same way, scoring cards in the opposite order you played them. There lies the heart of the gameplay. Throughout the game, the cards you play will serve both to set new objectives, and to meet the ones you played previously.

Each turn, you play a card from a hand of 3. Then you pick a new card from a face-up river. As play is simultaneous in Faraway, you must take into account a clever priority system in all of your choices – being last to pick a card leaves you with fewer options and often less profitable choices for the next turns.