Enchanted Ivy

• Designer: Sarah Joshua
• Publisher: Allplay
• Players: 1
• Age: 10+
• Time: 15 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Take on the role of Ivy, the courageous new owner of a magical inn. Build your bewitching B&B to best suit your eccentric guests while cultivating the ivy covering your walls.  Each turn, carefully place each card in a grid. Assign guests, noting their preferences (things like “diagonally adjacent”, “same row”, “surrounded” etc.) to score them at the end of the game. In Story Mode, earn rewards for meeting point goals and completing unique challenges. In Endless Mode, see how high you can score based on some setup options.

I have only played the game in Story Mode thus far, so that’s what I will explain here.  To start, open up the Storybook to the scenario you want to play – there are 11 different scenarios in the book.  There will be a diagram for the scenario to tell you what layout your Inn will have to take by the end of the game. 

Look at the guest list to see which Guest Cards are used in this game. Each guest has preferences that affect its scoring.  Each also has an Alignment (Sunny or Shady) which can be used in scoring. Token(s) for each guest are collected and placed in the draw bag.  The setup page for your scenario will also tell you how many ivy cards to randomly choose for the Ivy Deck.  

The game begins with the starting door placed on the table in front of you.  You also get to start with any secret doors that you have unlocked.  Draw 2 Ivy Cards and 2 Guest tokens from the bag as your starting supplies.  The Ivy Cards have the same ivy pattern on both sides, but one side has a Balcony also on it.  Guest Tokens will be placed on these Balconies.

As you play through the scenario, each turn has three distinct phases:

1] Build the Inn – in either order, play both cards from your hand. One must be blank side up and the other must be Balcony side up.  As you place cards, each must be orthogonally adjacent t0 at least one previously placed card. You may not place a card that makes it impossible to make the final Inn Layout as specified in the setup.  

2] Place a Guest – You must place one guest token each turn on the Balcony that you placed.  Refer to the cards for each Guest to find the most suitable one to place each turn

3] Replenish – Draw 2 Ivy cards and 1 Guest token to replenish your hand.

Once per game, you can place a door on the lower level of your Inn.  You will get the benefits printed on the back of that card. Once you place a door, no Ivy cards can ever be placed beneath it.

After all the Ivy cards are placed, you score the Scenario.  Each guest scores per their own rules, you score points for the number of Ivy fields in the Inn, and you score points for the Door that you played.  There is a chart in the Book for you to judge how well you did.  If you meet a minimum threshold of points, you claim Success for the scenario!  

There is a scoreboard where you can track successes and high scores – using animal stickers.  If you have met a challenge, you also get a sticker on your Keepsake shelf.  Each time that you fill a shelf, you get to unlock a door with the same letter.  It can be used in any future game. 

My thoughts on the game

Enchanted Ivy is a nice puzzle game that has kept me busy at night this week as well as some slow periods at work.  I’ve been playing through the scenario book and each one has proven to have different and interesting challenges.  It has been fairly easy to get a Successful score at the scenarios, but trying to get the High Score as well as all the Challenges has been more difficult.

You can replay a scenario as many times as you like, so you don’t have to accomplish all of the goals at once.  You do need to have at least a Successful score in order to check off the Challenges.

I do feel like I have been learning a bit each time I play – perhaps a more ideal place to use a character or learning how to time things better.  Of course, a lot also comes down to luck of the draw – do you end up with cards that have ivy in the right places at the right time.  Or do you get a character you need at the right time.  That being said, as you become more familiar with the guests in a scenario, you can also simply plan ahead as you know what is coming out of the bag at some point… 

You have so many things to think about on a given turn, but you must stick to the restrictions of one Ivy card and one Balcony card each turn.  You do have the advantage of being able to rotate the Ivy card – but each Balcony card must always be played right side up. This can lead to some tough decisions as the payoff for ivy fields is quite high – it’s often worth it to get a poor Guest score if you can protect the 20 points for a single Ivy Field in your Inn.

The puzzle in each Scenario that I’ve played so far has been challenging to figure out, and admittedly, there are times when luck has played a larger role in my overall success/failure.  It’s just simply easier to max out some characters when you get them earlier in the game – and that’s just based on luck.   

Each particular game only takes 10 to 15 minutes (as the max game can be ten turns – there are only 20 cards in the game!), and I have found Enchanted Ivy to be great for that short time span.  Some scenarios give you lots of guests to deal with, each with their own scoring rule – but in some sense, you only have to worry about the two that you have in your hand, and that’s how I compartmentalize things.  I’ll learn how things work in the first pass through any Scenario, and then I can work on more advanced planning on the second play once I’ve seen everything once.

Component wise, everything is pretty great.  The Guests are nice thick chits, and the cards are large enough to have both text explanations of the scoring as well as a visual example on the card.  I have heard that some people complain that the guest cards are too large, but as I’m generally playing on my dining room table, I’ve not been bothered by this as I have plenty of real estate.  I’m happy to trade off some table space for a card that gives me all the information I need!  

The only other quibble I have, which is weirdly consistent over the entire Allplay small box line is that all of the punched components don’t really fit the box.  The lid floats just the tiniest bit, and there is therefore maybe not enough room for the mini-expansion as a result.   This is probably a first world problem as a rubber band easily holds things together, and if I go this route, then then expansion will surely fit as well.  

Though I haven’t quite finished the scenario book yet, I have played enough to know that I enjoy this puzzle game and I look forward to playing it more in the future. This is not one that I will take when I travel though given the large amount of space it requires.  This one definitely wants a big table.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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