Gardening is one of the more relaxing and enjoyable things you can do when it comes to outdoor hobbies. I have often found that the process is a great way to feel connected to nature and really find your place in the creation process. Today we are going to look at a game that will place you on an adventure as a gardener and see how well you can make your beautiful creations grow. Let’s see what that looks like in the upcoming Kickstarter Gartenbau!
Gartenbau is a new release coming from 25th Century Games. It is designed by Alex Johns, graphic design by Todd Sanders and Matt Paquette and game development by Chad Elkins. It plays 2-4 players in 45-60 mins.
Overview
In Gartenbau players take on the roll of a gardener seeking to grow their yield before the growing season ends. You will be planting seeds to grow plants in your garden and try to achieve some of the top achievements in horticulture development. The player with the most points at the end of the game is the Master Gardener!
Gameplay
The game comes with a large amount of seedling and plant tiles that are set up in groups around the large market board in the middle. The seedling tiles have two of the six different types of seedlings on them and are set in groups of 9 around the rondel of the middle of the large flower on the main board. The different plant types are placed in ascending order and put in piles to the side of the main board.
Each player begins with a seedling starter tile, two water and sun tokens and one each of the watering can and flower pot tokens. Players place their token on the starting spot and play begins. On your turn you have three options on what move you can make. These include:
1-The Seedling Market
2-The Plant Market
3-Place Flower Tiles
In the first option The Seedling Market, players may move their piece along the rondel of the board and take a seedling tile. Optionally you may pay a resource to a column and skip it, leaving it there for another player to grab when they land and take that tile. You may instead choose to take the resources on the board as your reward.
In option two The Plant Market you may instead choose to move to one of the circle spaces on the board. Here you will acquire one of the plant tiles if you can pay the resources listed on that space. You must cover matching seedling tiles in your garden based on the printed requirements on the plant tile.
Finally you may choose to Place Flower Tiles. Here you will take one of the 6 flower tiles you started the game with and place it over the corresponding plant tiles that match the requirements printed on them.
The special tokens in the game allow you to skip directly to a seedling token you want or move something already in your garden once a game. These tokens may also be kept and will score two points each at the end of the game if not used. Players may also take the special abilities of a petal market space once all the tiles in that space are gone, these will give you extra options to further along the movement of the game.
The game continues from player to player as everyone chooses one of these three options on their turn. Once four of the seedling tiles are emptied from the main board, the game ends once back to the first player so everyone has a chance to play equal turns. The game scores at the end for flower tiles, plant tiles and unused special tokens. The player with the most points is the winner and Master Gardener!
Impressions
Gartenbau brings a certain amount of grace and beauty to a board game night the minute it hits the table. The rich and gorgeous art on the cover of the box is a striking presence and the inside contents do not disappoint either. The different tiles have some of the most beautiful pieces of plant art that I have ever seen in a game and give you the impression of gardening and planning out this beautiful flower bed. The large yellow flower open on the main game board really invites you into the experience as well. I am truly impressed at how wonderful this game looks on the table.
The gameplay for this one is smooth-I love the rondel motions in the middle and find that the choices are always significant no matter what decisions you are planning to make. I really enjoy the speed of the game as players are given choices to start the garden or built it up but the choices do not seem to overwhelming in this game-it moved at a very comfortable speed throughout for all players.
Player count for this one did not diminish the game at all, it gave it a different feel as more players really challenged you to make the right decisions and lean into a strategy to fight for the pieces you needed. It felt easier with two players but that still created a challenge back and forth for making the right moves at the right time over the other player.
This box brings a lot of game to the table. There are a number of tiles and tokens that all give it is some serious weight-you are getting a lot of game in this box and it really shows when you lay it all out. I can’t wait to see the finished product for this one and especially think the wooden tiles will be an amazing upgrade to this already fun experience.
Overall the game is an adventure deep into the gardening and growing process where players really get engaged into the joy and beauty of what it looks like to set up your own personal garden and experience the joy in the process. The progression from seedling to plant to finished flower tiles is a fun aspect for a game and I really loved the smooth nature of the game each time we played. We couldn’t get enough of the gardening on our table and I can’t wait to play this one again. My family really enjoyed this one and have asked to play it again which is a great sign for a game. It is in high demand around here and I expect it will be for you and your family and friends as well! Make sure to follow along and be alerted for the campaign which will begin November 9th at the link here:
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