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Community Garden: A game of friendships, rivalries, and strategic plantings

Community Garden: A game of friendships, rivalries, and strategic plantings

Number of Players: 2
Suggested Ages: 10+ years old
Average Game Duration: 20-30 minutes
Object of the Game: Control the most territory in the garden while maintaining balance between your team’s two colors

The neighborhood has built a new Community Garden, but no one can agree on how to divide the plots or on what to plant. After weeks of bickering, the neighborhood has broken into factions of “Vegetables” vs. “Flowers”, with each team racing to occupy as much of the Community Garden as possible. But tensions are high and alliances are tenuous. The best strategy is to plant your seeds in as many plots as possible - but not too many or you might upset your teammates and make life in the neighborhood even more uncomfortable than it already is.



 
HOW TO PLAY COMMUNITY GARDEN:

Players elect to control either The Vegetables (Red and Orange) or The Flowers (Blue and purple).

Players place their pawns on the corresponding starting spots on the board.

Turns alternate between players, but not necessarily between colors. On each player’s turn, they select one of their two color to play with and all actions that turn must be completed using only the selected color.

On their turn, the selected color can Spend up to 3 Action Points (AP) on the actions listed below.

Actions can be performed in any combination or order.

Unspent AP are lost and do not carry over to the next turn.

Possible actions and their costs
1. Move
• Move pawn 1 hexagonal tile = 1 AP
• Move pawn 2 hexagonal tiles = 3 AP
IMPORTANT: You cannot combine multiple 1 tile movements (for example, you CANNOT move 1 tile, place a color square, and move another tile since this would cost 4 Aps: move two tiles [3] + place a color square [1]). You cannot move through or end your movement in an occupied tile.

2. Plant seeds (place a color square)
• Place 2 color squares in an empty hexagonal tile that you occupy = 3 AP
• Place 1 color square in an empty or half empty tile that you occupy or in an adjacent unoccupied and empty or half empty tile = 1 AP
IMPORTANT: Except when placing two color squares in an empty tile you occupy, you can never place a color square in a tile that already has one of your own color squares!

3. Reseed (Change the color of square in the tile you occupy):
• Change teammate’s color square to your active color = 2 AP
• Change your active color square to your other team color = 1 AP
• Change rival team’s color square to your active color = 3 AP
• Change rival team’s color square to other rival team’s color = 1 AP

IMPORTANT: You can only change a color square in a tile you occupy!

Play continues until all but one of the hexagonal tile is completely filled with 2 color squares (i.e., the remaining tile may be half empty or completely empty), at which point the game is over. Play stops immediately and scores are calculated to determine the winner.

To calculate scores, each color receives +1 point for each of their tiles on the board at the end of play. For each entire row controlled by a team (Flowers or Vegetables), each color on that team receives a bonus of +3, +4, +5, or +6 points depending on the row (bonus point values are indicated the board). The last player to have placed a color square receives +3 bonus points that they can add to the score of any color (on their team or on the other team). Once scores are calculated, players compare the LOWER scores of their teams, and the HIGHER score wins. In other words, the player with the higher lower score is the winner.

For example, if the Flowers have the scores of Blue = 25 and Purple = 20, and the Vegetables have the scores of Red = 30 and Yellow = 18, the Flowers win the game (Purple and Yellow have the lower scores of their respective teams, and Purple beats Yellow).

Some Hints:
Because of the way the winner is decided, a key strategy is to maintain balance between the two colors on your team.
Correspondingly, an effective strategy can be to create imbalances between the colors of the rival team (for example by changing a rival team’s color square to the other color on that team).
Scores tend to be close, so bonuses can decide the winner. Try to control rows and try to be the last to play.


About Community Garden’s Designer:
When not playing and designing board games, Dr. Ken Feeley is a Biology Professor at the University of Miami (Miami, Florida, USA) where he teaches ecology and conservation. Dr. Feeley also leads the “Jungle Biology” lab, which researches the effects of climate change on rainforests. Dr. Feeley is a world-renowned expert on rainforests, and he has published more than 100 articles in prestigious scientific journals.