Renegade Game Studio | Arboretum | Card Game | Ages 8+ | 2-4 Players | 30 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

Every single card an opponent plays is a signal – there are only eight cards of each tree, and if someone else is building heavily in that suite then you probably shouldn’t be too reckless with your own agenda. I need to give a shout out to Renegade Games for creating the most garish and ugly deluxe edition I've come across. Choosing the correct cards and placing them in the most efficient orientation will score you the most points at the end of the game. In Arboretum, you create carefully planned paths for your visitors to walk as they take in the colorful explosion of buds and leaves. I think my two issues with this (in this particular game at any rate) is 1) it's very easy to completely surprise someone with a Nope action, because you have cards they cannot have knowledge of; and 2) I get the rug pulled out from under me at work on a regular basis, so this is another piece of potential frustration at the end of the day.

In fact, they’re trying to tear down your trees because they want their trees to be more prestigious. That’s frustrating, I imagine, since well, I can’t figure that this is a thing that a city wants 4+ of (similar to the problem Unfair has with one city seeing sometimes 4+ theme parks being constructed simultaneously). You can get one point through the positive action of planting a tree, or if you save the right card you can remove 5 from your opponent.A reshoot that I wouldn’t even tell you happened, because behind the scenes bloopers are for Saturday television and DVD extra features. And I guess that's the bit that Dave has bounced off here - an arbitrary top deck can be held at little cost and just ruin someone else. While this is easy at the beginning of the game, you'll soon hit that point where you'll have a hand of cards you want to keep, and then how do you make the decision on which cards to throw away? If you wanna win, you’re going to have to work very hard to actively hurt your opponent, and all your work may prove to have been worthless by the end of the game.

My reaction to Arboretum and other equally inciteful choices is totally different to the kind of anger levelled at a game that is simply poor. If you draw cards that already match those you have played you are more likely to lean towards trying to score. Which brings us to Arboretum, a new game from Z-Man Games that gives you a little taste of spring in a box – and it’s pollen free! As a big fan of Battle Line, I rejoice in the pure, almost impossible decision making and trade-offs in Arboretum. Part of it is that the game length can increase as players struggle with figuring out where to draw from (and the options will increase because you’ll have more discard piles to choose from) and that doesn’t jive well with the fact that it might all be for nothing if your opponent decides to mess you up (and manages to follow through on it).

the hand pressure is exaggerated in Arboretum because you also want to hold cards to burn your opponents scoring opportunities, and the scoring and whatnot is more elaborate in Arboretum, but they give me an extremely similar vibe in play.