Gretchen’s Garden

• Designer: Jay Bendixen, Ryan Boucher
• Publisher: Lookout Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45 minutes
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• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Gretchen’s Garden, players compete in selecting the most precious succulents available for their very own collection! You don’t even need a green thumb to win this easy to grasp tableau builder.  Over the course of 12 rounds, players try their very best to optimize their collection by adding extraordinary pots and rare specimens. This might request snatching the odd leave from your opponent’s plant. The player with the trendiest collection (and most points) wins!

Place Gretchen’s shop board in the middle of the table. Choose which succulents to play with (you need one set of each of six colors).  Place the six piles above the shop, and then use these to form the plant deck per the chart in the rules.  A flower of matching color is placed under each succulent stack. Next, shuffle the 24 pot cards to make a Pot Deck.  Draw cards from each deck to place in the empty spaces in the shop, adding 1 leaf to each face up plant card and 1 water on each face up pot card.  Shuffle the weather cards into a deck and then reveal the top card next to the deck – this sets the current weather conditions (and you can see the weather for the next turn on the card on top of the deck).  Each player gets their own board, 2 starting pots, and start money (leaves on their money plant) based on their turn order.

The game will be played over 12 rounds, each of which has 4 phases:

1] Action Phase – each player gets to take one and only one action here: 

• Buy a plant from Gretchen’s shop (cost below the card), keeping any leaves on it – if you buy a plant it must immediately go into a pot. You cannot buy a plant if you don’t have an empty pot for it.  Each pot has a leaf limit for the plant it holds.
• Buy a pot from Gretchen’s shop, keeping any water on it – a newly purchased pot must be placed in between the two pots on the far left or far right of your collection. The plants stay in the same place, so plants at the end of your collection can end up in new pots.

• Cut another player’s plant – choose an opponent plant that has at least one leaf and no flower AND that has a copy available in the supply.  Take one leaf from the opponent’s plant and turn it into a water, placing it in the pot beneath.  If there is not space for the water, place it in your opponent’s watering can.  Now, take a matching plant from the supply and place it in an empty pot in your collection.
• Tend your plants – you can move and water your plants in any order. You can move two of your plants and put them in new pots, including directly swapping two plants. Leaves move with the plants, and you will need to discard excess leaves if the new pot limit does not allow for them.   When you water, add 2 water to your watering can and then distribute any amount from the can into your pots.   If you have any plants in pots with full water, they grow leaves (See below in Growth phase)
• Flower a plant – if you have a plant in a pot matching its own color, you can take the matching color flower, if still available in the supply. Return all the water in its pot to the supply and then place the flower on the plant. It will be worth 7VP at the end of the game.  This flowered plant can no longer participate in the game, it cannot be watered, moved, cut, etc.

2] Weather Phase – all players take water from the supply as shown on the current weather card – placing them in their pots and watering can. 

3] Growth Phase – All players see which pots are at full water capacity with plants in them.  For each, take the water in the pot and convert them to leaves on the plant above.  If you have more leaves than the pot capacity, discard the excess leaves. 

4] Clean-Up Phase – replenish the shop by placing one leaf on each unchosen plant and one water on each unchosen pot.  Discard any plants with 4 leaves and any pots above their water capacity.  Move all the cards to the center of the shop (the cheapest spaces) and then draw cards from the respective decks to fill out the slots.  Draw a new weather card and pass the start marker clockwise.

After 12 rounds, the game ends.  You can discard any water left in your pots before moving to scoring.

• Leaves – 1 point for each leaf on a plant (do not count leaves on your money plant)
• Flowers – 7 points for each flower
• Plants – certain plants may score in different ways; refer to the player aid for each
• Pots – 2 points per pot

The player with the most points wins. There is no tiebreaker.

My thoughts on the game

Gretchen’s Garden is a tactical game where you have to make the most of your twelve actions in the game.  WIth the way that many of the plants score in the game, it may be more important to have the right plants in the right circumstances as opposed to simply having the most plants.

Each player starts with 2 starter pots, and they will always be the outermost pots in your collection.  As you buy new pots, you’ll slide them just inside the starter pot, leaving the plants in the same place.  What this means is that if you want to easily place a plant in a matching color pot, you must first plant it in a starter pot and then buy the correct colored pot later and move the plant into it.  Otherwise, you can use the tend action to move plants around.  It can be a powerful move, but it still takes one of your precious twelve actions.

Some plants give a bonus for being in the matching colored pot, but the general advantage is to be the player who gets to flower the plant of that color.  The fixed 7 point bonus for each flower can be a large contributor to a winning score.

The special plants all have unique rules that can be game-changers.  Be sure to closely read each one as they come into play.  I have seen an Aloe Vera plant be worth fifteen points!  Each game will play out differently as there is a randomly selected subset of the special plants done in setup.  Further, you can choose from two options for each color, further changing up the interactions in the game. The art on the cards is cheerful and bright, and I appreciate the fact that the colors also have icons associated with them to help colorblind gamers.

While the deck only has a few cards of each color of plant, players will generally have decent access to all the colors due to the cut action.  As long as a plant has a leaf and there are still some in the supply, you can take a cutting for any color plant in play.

Gretchen’s Garden admittedly doesn’t really do anything new mechanism-wise, but it does provide an easy going set collection game, and the gardening theme may appeal to some gamers.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor

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