Hey all! It’s Tuesday, which means let’s talk nerdish games, but also my head has decided to drop a multiple-day headache on me, so this will be quick. Recently, we had our weekly gaming night friends over and none of us were up to Earthborn Rangers (which I should really give a third, ‘Now we get it, what do we think?’ post) so we pulled out our smallest boxes of basic games, and one of those games was Arboretum.

More Complex and Competitive Than You Think

The core concept of Arboretum is pretty simple—deceptively so. You’ve got a deck you’re all drawing from, you have seven cards in your hands, and the cards are made up of 1 through 8 of various tree types: dogwood, oak, cherry blossom, etc. Depending on the number of players, you create the draw deck from up to ten tree types (each with those 1 through 8 cards) and deal out a hand to each player, and then each player takes turns doing three things.

First you draw two cards, in any combination from the top of the draw pile (which are face down) or the top of any player’s discard pile (which will be face up). You can look at your drawn card before deciding what to do next if that’s your first draw.

Second, you play a card to your Arboretum. This is placing a card in front of you, which has to be adjacent, vertically or horizontally, to a previous card you played (once you’ve played your first card, obviously). This is where the numbers and tree types come in: during scoring, you’ll eventually be drawing “paths” from lowest to highest through your Arboretum starting at the lowest number of a particular species of tree to the highest number you’ve got of that species of tree, which means you’re trying to create paths in (somewhat) numerical order, though those paths can twist and turn horizontally and vertically. What I’m saying is, if you place a 1 and then a 2 beside the 1, it might very well be the next best play for you is to play another 2 above the 1, so that you’ve got two 2 cards of different species to “begin” a path with. Making your Arboretum, card-by-card—especially if you end up with species or numbers that aren’t of immediate use to you—can get difficult as you try to think ahead, create contingencies and so forth.

Third, you must discard a card. This is where some of the “this is more complex and competitive than I thought it would be” comes into play. If you’re more competitive than I am, you don’t want to drop cards that would fit perfectly into someone else’s Arboretum structure (it’s worth noting I don’t think I’ve ever won a game of Arboretum, and I think it comes down to this: I’m always trying to make the best I can with my own cards, and not paying enough attention to what other people are doing, and the rest of the people I play with tend to be far more clever at strategically denying cards).

Oh, and you also need cards in your hand that match the same species as any tree type you’ve put into your Arboretum that you want to score.

Sorry, What Was That Last Bit?

Yeah, the last bit is the real frustration of Arboretum (or, I suppose, the fun of it, if you really like strategic games where you’ve got a shot at ruining other people’s plans). So, by the time the game ends (when there are no more cards to draw from the draw deck), you’ll have a whole bunch of trees in front of you that make a bunch of paths from low numbers to high numbers, and it’s time to score.

But only one person gets to score each species of tree.

Who gets to score? Whoever has the highest sum of that species of tree still in their hand. There’s one last quirky bit to this as well: if you have the 8 of a species in your hand, and someone else has the 1 of a species in their hand? The 8 is considered a 0. So hanging onto the 8 point card to score your path of that species isn’t necessarily the best option, especially if you can’t see the 1 in play at any point in the game—if you don’t have it, you didn’t see it played or discarded, then someone else does, and your 8 is now worth 0 if it’s in your hand.

Only the person who has the highest sum of a species in their hand gets to score that species. They count the lowest number tree to the highest number tree of that species in their Arboretum along a path, and get points (1 per tree in the path, +1 additional point per tree if the path if it’s at least four trees long and the path is entirely made up of the same species, +1 if it begins with a one, and +1 if it ends with an 8). I should note it’s totally possible to have the highest number of a species in your hand and not be able to score a path, either—the last game I played that happened to me: other players kept multiple trees of paths I was the only one working on, and though I had the 1 and the 8 both out in play and the 7 in my hand? Someone else had the 6 and the 2, so… Bzzt. They scored nothing for that species, but they stopped me from scoring.

There is also a “tie” or “null” scenario where if no one has the highest number of a species in their hand, everyone gets to score it, but I’ve yet to see that happen in a game.

You Sound Ambivalent, Dude

Yeah, that’s fair. I think ultimately I really enjoy the fun of trying to build my Arboretum paths, but I don’t at all enjoy the “but also try to screw other people other while you’re doing it” and unfortunately, that’s how the game is played effectively, so I’m kind of losing out of the gate every time. I think there’s a vibe mismatch here, too: like when I think of strolling through an Arboretum (something I do with Max on the regular), I think relaxing, pleasant, and peaceful—there’s too much “how do I stop you from winning?” vs “how do I build a pleasant path?” in this game for that.

Also, now that we’ve got enough games on the score pad to note recurring patterns, one thing is really, really clear: if a player can build up that path of single-species-tree and score it (for double points), they’re going to win unless you find a way to screw them over by getting those trees into your hand to deny them the scoring, but functionally that’s pretty luck based.

Oh! And if you have the opportunity to get the deluxe super-fancy version of the game, we suggest you… don’t. They chose to print holographic cards, and the shiny, reflective surfaces make playing the game difficult because it’s hard to read the cards on the table if you’ve got a light, y’know, above the table.