National Parks are some of the best places to really step into nature and see all of its majesty. Some of my favorite places to explore are the lush areas full of trees that grow up beautiful and drop some really vibrant leaves in the fall. Today we will take a look at a game that does just that and gives us a year cycle of everything going on in this escape to nature.
Bosk is a new game from Floodgate Games designed by Daryl Andrews and Erica Bouyouris with illustration by Kwanchai Moriya. It plays 2-4 players and has a play time of approximately one hour.
In Bosk players grow trees and score points based on dominance of their trees in the trails on the game board. Thty then move to the later part of the game where winds drop leaves to cover ground and control different regions on the board. Most points at the end of the year wins!
Setup/Gameplay
The large game board is placed in the middle of the table with each player taking one species of tress and all the leaf tiles and tokens for that color along with the 8 trees and one squirrel.
The game is played over the course of a year where you play in two of the seasons and score the other two. Let’s cover each season and how it moves the game along.
Spring/Summer
In the beginning of the game Spring starts us off with players growing trees by placing them on the trail intersections on the board. If you have the most points on your trees in a row or column in the Summer you’ll score points. You must place a tree in an unoccupied intersection, so not on an edge space. Once all the trees are placed you score each row and each column one at a time, adding up the values of the trees for each player in the row or column.
Points are awarded in the Summer for having the highest total point value (2 points) and second place scores as well (1 point). Ties will change the way scoring happens as well. The player with the least amount of points will be the new starting player for autumn and they will determine the next steps moving forward.
Autumn/Winter
The leaves will fall in the direction that the wind blows from the trees and that will cover the terrain. Leaves will fall for each player one at a time in the direction of the wind board. The first 4 rounds are a specific tree and then rounds 5-8 you can chose the tree you would like to drop.
To drop the leaves you pick one tree and a leaf token to determine the amount of leaf meeples that will drop to the ground. You will place them one square at a time as the wind dictates progressing down the same direction until you run out of board. You may place a leaf on top of another player’s leaf as long as you discard one from your supply. At the end of each turn the wind direction marker moves forward and changes where the leaves will land for the next round for a different tree. The squirrel is another type of choice you may use instead of blowing leaves. The squirrel jumps on a pile of any amount of leaves to lock it in place.
In the Winter the trees are all bare and the players will score for the ground they cover for having the most of the color on one of the types of terrain. First and second place are scored and ties are counted down as well. After winter each player will compare the points they score and the highest scoring player is the winner!
Impressions
What could be better:
Punchboards. I may be alone in this but my trees were difficult to get out and that made some damage to those trees. So if nothing else, be very careful with how you take this one out and assemble it.
Variety. I would like to see a little more variance in player powers or something to vary up the way the players are able to score the areas they control.
What I liked:
Art and design. This game looks gorgeous on the table. The trees and the board and super beautiful and really give a great table presence. The leaf and squirrel meeples are great and really pop out and shine in design. The board is smooth and easy to learn how it works quickly.
Scoring. I really liked the two pronged scoring style, you make a series of decisions and score and then have a chance to make another series of decisions and score. It breaks up the game enough to really feel like you have a chance to compete in both seasons.
Speed. This game plays smooth and quick, players turn move swiftly and there is not a lot of down time between the turns. Setup, gameplay and teardown make this a game that seems to last around an hour for us, enough to feel like we got a good game in but not overstay its welcome.
Overall
Bosk by Floodgate Games is a beautiful and serene game that really puts you in the middle of the forest to absorb the four seasons and see how they flow from growth through the fall of the leaves. The artistic presence of this game is bound to catch the eye of board game and nature lovers alike. The smooth gameplay and area control aspects really make it a fun and competitive game without ever becoming too aggressive or mean-spirited. Easily one of my favorites of 2019 so far, I can’t wait to introduce this to more players. This has been a great experience with everyone it has hit the table with, and one I fully expect to continue to play for many more seasons.
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