A day in the afternoon sun is here for us to enjoy together in your own garden. Who doesn’t love the idea of a relaxing stroll around your own personal garden as you pick and arrange some of your beautiful flowers into arrangements to be enjoyed. Today we will look at a game hoping to do just that!
Floriferous is a new game coming to Kickstarter from Pencil First Games on March 23rd, 2021. It is designed by Steve Finn with art by Clementine Campardou and development by Eduardo Baraf. It will be for 1-4 players and plays in 20 mins.
Overview:
Floriferous is a game in which players will be scoring victory points through the collection of flowers on the board and pairing them into arrangements and scoring the types you have through desire and bounty cards.
Gameplay:
Floriferous is played over the course of three days and each day consists of 5 rounds. In a round, players will take their turn walking through the garden and taking one card from the column that makes up each round. Turns are done so that the player order may change each round, the higher in the column you pick the card, the sooner your turn is in the next round. This continues through each round and into the next day.
At the end of each day, players will walk back through the garden for 5 rounds with new cards there to select. Any remaining cards are discarded and all are replaced.
There are bounty cards at the top of the garden that can be fulfilled by any player on their turn, and the sooner you do them the more points they are worth. You place one of your tokens on the column that matches the day you succeeded in fulfilling them. Each bounty card must have three unique cards to fulfill them.
The cards in the garden that you can pick up will be Flower, Arrangement, Sculpture or Desire cards. Let’s look at each one and what they do:
Flower Cards: These cards represent the main cards in the game, there are five types of flowers and each come on five colors. A few of the flowers have a type of bug on them as well, and there five of these also. So the color, type and bug are all important as they are used in scoring at the end of the game.
Arrangement Cards: There are five of these total in the deck and the goal is to match 1/2/3 of the aspects on the card at least once to score 1/3/5 points.
Sculpture Cards: These appear and are worth points at the end of the game based on how many you have acquired.
Desire Cards: These are at the bottom of the garden and are worth points at the end of the game based on what are on your flower cards.
There are also stones that are available to grab on certain cards, every two is worth 1 point at the end of the game and the one with the most of them will get the Cup of Tea card worth two extra points at the end of the game.
When all players have completed their third day, the game is over and the points are scored. The player with the most points is declared the winner!
Impressions:
Like most of the Pencil First Games, this one does not slack on production in the least bit. The art is top notch and everything you would expect from what we have seen in the past. I love that each flower is so wonderfully detailed in watercolor, popping off of the card in beautifully done work. The flowers, the Desire and Bounty cards, the Cup of Tea-all of it so well done and a joy to have on the table.
The game is especially fun for a quick and easy game or two to play after dinner or when you are looking for a short game to start or finish a game night. That being said it isn’t without strategy, the decision-making that must happen is still there and tight for scoring points. I especially like the choices to grab Desire cards at early points ion the game and try to form a a strategy, or wait to see what comes up that matches your other cards you already may have grabbed. Don’t be surprised on this one being a game that you are constantly trying to find ways to score points in different ways each time you play it.
Don’t sleep on this one friends-it is another game in the Pencil First lineup that is going to be a hit! Beautiful artwork, smooth and quick gameplay with strategy that is tight and enjoyable make this a game we will be looking to get to our table often. Make sure to check out the Kickstarter campaign page here:
Kickstarter campaign for Floriferous
Be the first to comment