Arboretum

The Game

Arboretum is a beautiful card game. You build parks with trees. The trees on the cards are absolutely charming. You create paths in your parks to score points. A path is a sequence of cards where the numbers are in ascending order. This is an abstract game. 

This is what a 3-player game looks like. The number of tree types (i.e. suits) used depends on the player count. Everyone creates his own park before him. You have your own play area and you don't mess with others' play areas. 

You always have a hand of 7 cards. On your turn, you first draw 2 cards. You then must play a card into your park, and discard a card. So you will be back to 7 cards by the end of your turn. 

Everyone has his own discard pile. When you draw a card, you can draw from the deck or from any of the discard piles, even your own. Discarding cards is often a difficult thing to do, because you don't want to discard something that will help your opponents. Since there are separate discard piles, the card on top of yours will be exposed to everyone until your next turn when you can cover it with the next discard. 

The game ends when the draw deck runs out. You have some control over this. If you want the game to go longer, draw from the discard piles. 

Let's talk about how you score points. Every tree type gets one chance to score points. Look for the highest valued path in your tableau for that tree type. For a specific tree type, a valid path starts and ends with cards of that tree type. The middle cards of the path can be of any tree type. The numbers along the path must be ascending. They need not be consecutive, but they may not repeat. A path scores based on the number of cards. Using the green tree type in the photo above, the path starts on the left with a 1, and ends on the right with an 8. It scores 6 points. The blue tree scores 3 points. The pink tree starts with a 2 and ends with a 6. Since the path is all the same colour, and there are at least 4 cards, this path scores double. That's 8 points for pink. 

The 1's and 8's give bonuses. 1's give a 1 point bonus, and 8's give a 2 point bonus. So that green tree path actually scores 9 points, because of these bonuses. 

The main twist in the game is in order to score a particular tree type, you need to have cards of that type remaining in your hand. The card value total must be highest for you to earn the right to score for that tree type. If you don't win the scoring right, the path for that tree type in your tableau is worthless. This mechanism creates quite the dilemma for you. You need cards on the table, but you also need them in hand. There are special rules for the 1's and the 8's here. If one player has an 8 of one tree type, but another player has the 1, the 1 neutralises the 8, making it 0. 

The Play

The gameplay is simple, but the decisions are often not. If you get very lucky and draw many cards of the same type, then it is a no brainer. Play this tree type. You'll have enough to keep in hand for securing the scoring right. Most of the time, you are not that lucky and you will agonise over what tree type to play and to discard. Every turn you must play a card, so you get that feeling of time waiting for no one. The hand size of 7 is a challenge. You need slots for keeping cards you need to win scoring rights. You also need slots to prepare to play your next cards. You need slots to hold important cards your opponents need. You want to deny them from scoring. 7 slots is not a lot with so many things you need to do. 

When you play cards, you are effectively announcing to the world what tree types you will be trying to score. Your opponents are watching and will avoid discarding cards you'll need. If they happen to hold high cards of that tree type, they'll try to hold on to them in order to deny you the scoring right. Yet, it's not always possible to hide your plans, at least not for long. Sooner or later you'll need to play your cards. Playing cards you don't intend to use for scoring is wasteful, so it's not really a good idea to play a card only for the sake of hiding your plans. 

The art is gorgeous

I kept the 1's with the intention to neutralise my opponents' 8's

I had a path of pure sakura (pink) trees, which meant I would double the points. I kept the sakura 1 and 7 in hand. The 1 will protect me from an opponent holding on the the 8. The 7 was strong and hopefully would give me enough to secure the scoring right. 

In this game you play through the deck, so you can card count. If you never see a certain card until the deck is almost out, chances are it is being held by one of your opponents. 

With 3 players, we had 8 tree types in play. At the end of our game, only 3 tree types scored. The other 5 types were blocked by players who didn't have paths of those tree types. We actively denied one another from scoring points. What nasty people! 

The Thoughts

Arboretum is a light card game, but it is not simplistic. Despite the simple rules, it has plenty of player interaction and many tough decisions. It reminds me of the classic Lost Cities. This is very much an abstract game and the setting feels very much pasted on to me. However the art is lovely and that adds to the play experience. I'm certainly glad it isn't put together as just a numbers and colours game.