Barton in Bloom Review
by Ian. Mon, 22 May (Updated at Mon, 22 May)Disclaimer: I was typing this review shortly after playing however I got distracted and now find myself trying to remember the exact words of the actions ..etc but failing. So excuse the lack of accuracy in the terminology.
The game has a central board which is where most of the action takes place by moving dice and taking the appropriate action.
You also have a player board that represents your garden. Here you will plant your plants, grow them, harvest them and add ornaments and upgrades.
Let’s talk about your player board first.
It is A 3 BY 3 GRID which initially is empty. In this grid, you will place garden tiles, which themselves are smaller 3 x 3 grids. The garden tiles represent different types of ground. Water, grass and paths are all purely used when looking at scoring cards. Soil areas are used for planting plants.
You place these tiles anywhere on your main 3 x 3 grid in any orientation. When you obtain an ornament this is placed on your smaller grid. Finally, when you complete a garden tile, all plant spots are filled with plants or ornaments) to yet a small instant bonus.
Round the edge of your board are spaces for fertiliser tiles which give you bonuses on the column or row they are facing.
The main board has a number of action spaces and dice. On your go, you select and dice and pay coins equal to the current dice value. Then you can either move it to another location and take that action, keep it where it is, or rest it by moving it back to its “home” space and do an income phase and a mini action. In the first 2 cases, you then increase the die value.
Action spaces you can do are:
Mow lawn – Get money
Complete Objectives – Sell Flowers
Buy more garden tiles
By “seeds/plants” and ornaments
Harvest your flowers.
Basically, the plan is to plant your plants, which will grow them and then harvest them. With harvest, if you leave a plant in the ground you can grow it with an action.
Once you have them harvested generally you are looking to sell them for points or to plant them again in new plots.
Overall this is a great mid-weight Euro with worker placement and objective completion at its core. It has a great theme and seems to be very well-balanced.
Looking forward to this again in the future.