Playing board games with a plant theme, especially ones with absolutely beautiful art, is always a highlight. Planted is one such game; where you are looking to create a little greenhouse of plants, all that have been cared for.
This is a two to five player game, where each player gets their own greenhouse and hand of cards to start out with. Each hand consists of a set number of resource cards and tool or decoration cards. In the middle of the table, there is a nursery as well, that holds more plants in case you see one that you’d rather enjoy. Everyone does have a starter plant in your greenhouse as well, to start you off.
On your turn, you can decide to either play a card from your hand or place down a card and shout Nursery, to pick a plant from the nursery itself. Tools cards are active cards that go in the tool section of your nursery. These cards often give you bonuses on resource cards that you play. Decoration cards, on the other hand, sit in your decoration section, and help with scoring at the end of the game. They often give you bonus points for having specific types of plants or having combinations of specific types.
In Planted, when you select the card you want to play on your turn, everyone will actually flip them over at the same time, and yell nursery at the same time. Those who have the lowest number on their sacrificed card if more than one person says nursery, will go first in picking a plant and placing them in their greenhouse. Then, the hand that you’ve just picked from will be passed left or right, depending on the round.
Resources are a big part of Planted. You will need to gather rain drops, plant food and sunshine to help your plants, which are shown on the bottom of their cards. As you play cards, you will be gathering these resources in the center of your greenhouse. You can also gain green thumbs, which allow you to use two as a wild resource. At the end of the round, you will need to spend all of your resources, by completing cards or trading two matching resources in for a leaf, which counts as one extra point (though there are a limit of these too) at the end of the game. Any unused resources go back in their bags.
This is where you will need to plan out your cards and ensure you are actually using your resources on your plants, as you will get a leaf token that goes over the lowest number, moving up the plant each time you complete their needs, which can be done once per round. There are four rounds total before you will tally up your points! There isn’t really a way to sort of stop other players, Planted instead has a focus on your own plants and ensuring you have the resources for them.
The artwork in Planted is absolutely beautiful, but so are the game components. The water and sun are both translucent, looking so fun, and the leaves, green thumbs and plant food are all costume pieces that also feel great. It’s such a stunning game and the gameplay is fun to match.
You can purchase Planted from Big Potato Games.
Love board games? Check out our list of the top board games we’ve reviewed.
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