Gardlings

• Designer:Kristian A Østby and Maria Østby 
• Publisher: Alion
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Cleverly build your garden. Harvest gems and enrich your seed bag with new, amazing creatures so your next garden can grow even more abundant. Combine the unique abilities of your creatures, and be the first to acquire the victory trophy. Each round in Gardlings, all players simultaneously build their garden in front of themselves. You do this by drawing and placing tiles from your bag. You may stop drawing tiles at any time because if you draw too many gnomes, they will steal gems from you. At the end of the round, use any gems you matched in your garden to buy a new tile, then return all of your tiles to your bag to prepare for the next round. Each tile features potential ways to match gems, as well as a creature with a special ability. Your garden will grow larger and better each round, and the puzzle of placing tiles will become increasingly complex. The goal of the game is to match enough gems to buy the victory tile.

The game board is placed on the table, and the creature tiles are sorted, shuffled, and placed next to the board section matching their color.  One coin is placed next to the stacks at the 7, 10, and 14 level.  The Pity Pigs are placed to the left and the victory tile placed to the right (choose the 17 side for a shorter game, the 20 side for a longer game).

Each player gets a bag and an identical set of starting tiles.  Play in each round is simultaneous. Players draw tiles out of their bag, one at a time. Each newly drawn tile must be placed in that player’s garden. All tiles must be placed adjacent to a previously placed tile and all edges must match (gems must match other gems and blank sides must match bland sides).  

Players can stop after any tile draw.  The reason they might stop is that there is a penalty if you draw a tile that would bring the number of gnomes in your garden above 5.  If this happens, you do NOT place that final tile, but instead place it facedown to remind you of your impending penalty.  

The characters on the tiles all have special abilities:

• Gardener – has unique triple gems (though must be matched with another gardener)
• Birdie – has rainbow eggs that match any color gem
• Mushies – have their gems connected with a line. If both exterior gems are matched, you also get the interior gem seen on that line
• Pigs – If you have 3 or more pigs, you get a coin from the supply. Or, in the advanced game, in the buy phase, one of your pigs mutates into a real tile one level above its current state.
• Dragons – if you have 3 or more Dragons, you can have up to 6 gnomes in your garden before getting a penalty. Or in the advanced game, once someone has 3+ Dragons, all other players who do not have 3+ dragons will lose 2 gems before the buy phase.
• Unicorns – no ability in the base game. In the Advanced game, they can be moved at any time to a new location in your garden.
• Ponds (not actually a tile) – only in the advanced game – if you connect your tiles to leave an empty space, gain one coin in the buy phase for each pond

Once all players have stopped drawing tiles, each player gets to buy a single tile, starting with the current start player and moving clockwise. The cost of a new tile is shown on the game board. Take either of the visible tiles at the cost you want to buy.  Your purchasing power is the completed gems in your garden plus any coin tokens you want to spend.  If you took the gnome penalty, subtract half of the gems from your total (as the gnomes stole those from you).  If you do not have 4 gems, you are obligated to take a pity pig and a coin. If you are the first person to buy a tile from a 7, 10 or 14 stack, you take the coin that was placed next to that stack in setup.

Mix the new tile into your bag and play another round.  If a player is able to buy the victory tile (can only use gems for this – no coins!), that person is the winner.  If multiple players are able to buy the tile on the same round, the player with the most coins wins. If there is still a tie, no one can buy the tile and the game goes on for another round.

My thoughts on the game

Gardlings is a fun little bag-building game that is mashed up with a tile-laying game.  You’re trying to get tiles into your bag that will let you match up the most gems; but of course, you have to draw them up in the right order and you have to place them in the right places.  All the while, you’re weighing the risks of busting.  In the basic game, busting costs you three gems, but in the advanced rules, it costs you half of your gems!  This can really be an engine stopper in the endgame…

So, the game offers both basic and advanced rules.  The rules also state that you can use any or all of the advanced rules.  While I think this helps the game reach more players, rules end up being super confusing.  The rulebook doesn’t make it particularly clear whether the basic rules stay in effect for things that also have advanced rules (though the player aid does seem to clear up much of the confusion).  After playing a few times, I’d recommend either playing straight basic or the full monty advanced – but of course, YMMV, and the rules allow you to play with whatever rules you like.

But, back to the basic game (which is my preferred way of playing) – there is a fun push-your-luck puzzle each turn as you try to build your network.  You’ll likely remember some of your “better tiles” – for me it’s usually the double and triple gem combos – and you’ll try to plan on spaces where those can fit.  But as my luck usually works out, the tiles rarely come out in an optimal order for me, and then you have the tough decisions of where to place certain tiles and when to stop drawing tiles.   

Each turn moves quickly, especially as each player is usually engrossed in their own puzzle.  Of course, if you finish early, it’s a great time to start looking at what you might buy as well as trying to egg on your opponents to continue pushing their luck so they bust.    Each of the tile types comes with a special ability, and they are really well thought out.  You can most definitely come up with a strategic plan with the right combination of tiles – and sometimes it might even make sense to buy a tile from a cheaper stack if it helps you get the right special ability that your strategy wants.

Gardlings has been very well received here, and it has already had a number of requests for repeat plays.  The repeated puzzle of building your network from your tiles with the added push-your-luck pressure keeps gamers on their toes.  The game plays super fast, and with all of the puzzling involved – it makes for a very pleasing super filler.  Games rarely take more than 15 minutes when you play to the lower goal of 17 gems.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mark Jackson (1 play):  What Dale said. Seriously, I want to play it again.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Mark Jackson
• I like it.
• Neutral.
• Not for me…