Garden

• Designer: Andy Hopwood 
• Publisher: Taiwan Boardgame Design
• Players: 2
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15 min
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Imagine noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) but with the need to think several moves ahead and with each piece having a particular power and control over your opponent. Garden. Try to create the most lines of 3 counters in your colour.

The standard game is played on a 4 x 4 square grid. Each Player has eight pieces with four pairs of symbols. Each piece when played determines where your opponent can play their next piece.

In Garden each piece you play instructs your opponent how to play:

• Dragonfly: in a straight line orthogonally
• Butterfly: in a straight line diagonally  
• Snail: in a place adjacent to the piece just played
• Ladybug: Cannot play adjacent to the piece just played

The aim is to form lines of 3 but with your opponent controlling where you can play this is harder than it sounds. If you can play so your opponent is unable to go you get a free play anywhere on the board.

The game ends when all the bugs have been placed on the board.  Now, each player scores 1 point for each row of 3 bugs in a row and 2 points for each row of 4 bugs in a row.   The player with the most points wins.

In the advanced game, players can alternate placing the four 2×2 grid pieces to end up with a non square board.

My thoughts on the game

After playing my first game, I thought that this game felt familiar, and it turns out that I’ve likely played it before – the game having a previous edition called Mijnlieff, first published in 2010.

Garden is a deceivingly complex abstract game.  Each player has four types of pieces to use, and there is a nice back and forth as the players choose their pieces in an attempt to make their opponent play their next piece in a certain spot.  As players score points for rows of 3 or 4 pieces, you’ll want to try to prevent scoring opportunities.

 As the game progresses, you’ll start to have opportunities to make your opponent miss their next turn (if they are unable to legally play a piece) – and getting a second turn in a row is usually a gamebreaker as you can play that second piece on any empty space.

It’s always a good idea to keep tabs on what pieces your opponent has left over – you can use this knowledge to predict the restrictions on your next play – and with enough planning, you might even be able to set up a chain of four or more moves that will result in you gaining an extra turn.

Once you have played a few times, you can move away from the fixed 4×4 grid and set the board pieces up in all sorts of interesting shapes to add more challenge to your Garden duels. 

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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