Arboretum , Card Game , Ages 8+ , 2-4 Players , 30 Minutes Playing Time

Bought as a gift but was told it’s a good game and was well received

This is a great card game. On the surface it is very simple and it only takes a few minutes to learn the rules. But, once you start playing – well like any great game, the strategies are endless! So, you have a pack of playing cards; the suits are trees. 10 suits, 8 cards per suit. The art work is lovely by the way, so even if you are flummoxed by the game, it is still an enjoyable visual experience. You simply have to lay your trees (cards) on the table in front of you in such a way as to make a path, going from low numbers to high numbers. But you also have to hold the right cards in your hand to stop your opponent from making their path – and therein lies the difficulty. You continually have to compromise between building your own hand / path and holding cards that will thwart your opponent(s); and your strategies have to adapt as new cards are revealed in every turn. Tremendous fun. A truly well thought out game, with beautiful art work.

I love this game. It's a hard one to teach people because of the 2 games you're basically playing at once. It isn't hard when you get it, but playing well is hard. It's very cool. But not what I'd call a light game

For a game that looks so serene this is one of the most combative and sneaky games going. There is great strategy available here and the decisions of what to play and what to hold has massive implications not just for you but your opponents.

Bought this game purely because I thought it looked pretty. Ooh a nice game with pretty trees. It is true very pretty trees. But they actual gameplay is highly competitive and brings out a real ruthless streak in everyone. Highly enjoyable game

One of my favourite games now. I just love how it's as fun to play with two players as it is with four.

very simple yet incredibly complex game. Very portable Plays well with 2 or 4 players and experiences are quite different. Like most good games, too much to do in too little time...do you bolster your own forest or sabotage your opponents?

Am not the biggest fan of the game, not very stimulating or exciting, if you like games with thinking, strategy and numbers (on an easy level) this may be for you!

Un jeu sympa, avec de jolies illustrations.

This card driven game is beautiful on the table. There is a game in a game with this one, you play a mini game to earn the right to score your tree paths, this is where the mean streak comes into play as you try to thwart your opponents. Fun game.

Note: This is a review of the basic, non-deluxe version. I got the Deluxe version in the mail today to compare the two -- and while the deluxe isn't totally bad, I GREATLY prefer the non-deluxe version. The only advantage of the Deluxe version is the really nice wooden box. The problem is that the cards, with have rainbow foil in the deluxe version, are a lot darker than the cards in the base game, dulling the colors of the trees (the foil is not even on the trees -- it's on the background). At certain angles you get a weird rainbow effect. This is just really gaudy and distracting, to the point that it's' almost funny in a game about trees, and it's a total contrast with the base game art (and the old Zman edition). I've attached some deluxe edition pictures after the pictures I have posted of the regular edition. ---Here is my review of the basic edition: Arboretum by Renegade studios is a reprint of the Zman original, with more vibrant and "rendered" artwork that contrasts significantly with the original game's "found-in-the-attic" look that had a bit more character. Some of the trees are different too (you now get a Blue Spruce, Cherry Blossom and Tulip Poplar, to replace the original's Lilac, creepy Olive, and Magnolia -- but the total number of cards/trees is the same as the original). I've attached several pictures to make it clear how the game looks, which is absolutely fantastic in person. The insert is fine, cards are high-quality BUT very glossy and NOT LINEN (unlike the zman original). Score-sheets are included. My rules explanation, with a helpful bit from the designer's post on BGG, is below. The bottom line is that this is a far more tense and strategic game than its theme would suggest. The basic idea is that each player is building a personal arboretum full of different trees, but players only receive points for their tree paths if they play tactically and arrange the trees properly. Imagine carefully laying out a beautiful, clever path of maple trees, only to be surprised, and maybe a bit frustrated, that someone else has been holding a maple that reduces all your hard work to zilch. (But you should have -- and could have -- seen it coming if you paid a bit more attention.) Regardless, at the end of the game, both winners and losers have gorgeous-looking card arboretums to look at. That's Arboretum! I believe the best player counts are 2-3, although the game supports up to 4. The only problem with 4 players is that it's a bit harder to track all the cards people are discarding and picking up from the discard piles, which can be critical to success for reasons explained below. (Note the designer has said you can look through the discard piles at will.) The game still works well at all player counts, though. Where I found games like Photosynthesis to feel wildly different depending on player counts (too much room to maneuver at 2, and too chaotic and cramped with 4), Arboretum feels tense and tight enough at all player counts. Mechanically, arboretum is simple to teach: Each player receives 7 cards, and each turn (including the first turn), each player takes turns doing the following: (1) DRAWING 2 cards (from the top of the draw deck, the top of any player's discard pile, or a mix of both). Then (2) PLACING one card in their personal arboretum-- on top of or horizontal with another card already there, if they have already placed one on an earlier turn. And then (3) DISCARDING ONE CARD from their hand into a personal discard pile that is always available for other players to review. This is consistently very agonizing -- you likely will not want to discard anything, since it could very well get picked up by your opponent and used to score a tree path or neutralize one of yours. Note there are no personal discard piles until after the first player creates one, so the first player must draw two cards from the draw deck. Of course, you are not simply placing the trees in the arboretum randomly. You want to create valid 'paths' of different tree types, so you can score them at the end of the game. To "score" a certain tree type [i.e., maple, dogwood, etc.] when the game has concluded, look at your arboretum and hopefully you have made valid "tree paths" of that tree type. A valid tree path BEGINS and ENDS with the same type of tree, and proceeds in ASCENDING numerical order, either vertically, horizontally, or a mix of both (left to right, or right to left!) as long as you can trace a path through your arboretum. Each tree in the path counts for 1 point. If, say, you have a 3 of Maple, a 5 of Dogwood, and a 6 of Maple in an uninterrupted path, you have a 3-point maple path. There are some bonuses: Each card counts for 2, instead of 1, if the path contains at least 4 cards and each card is the same tree color. You also get +1 if your path starts with a 1, and a +2 if your path ends with an 8. So, if your uninterrupted path is a one of Maple, a three of maple, a four of maple , and an eight of maple — you score 4 points for the number of cards, plus 4 more for having 4+ cards of the same type in the path, plus a 2 point bonus for the 8 and a 1 point bonus for the 1! Placing trees in your arborteum is just as tense as discarding cards. You want to be creating paths in ascending order, but not be so obvious about it that it telegraphs your intent to other player(s), who can try to beat you out to score that path. Note: only 6/9 tree types are used in a 2 player game. Here is the kicker !! --- A maximum of ONE single path of each tree type can be scored by each player, and paths are only "scored" by the player(s) who has the right to score the tree at the end of the game. You get the right to score a single path of a particular tree type if the sum value of the trees matching that type in your HAND (not your arboretum or discard) is higher than anyone else's, or equal to the highest player's sum. If there is a tie, all tied players can score their tree paths of that type. If i have a beautiful 6-card maple path in my arboretum and a 3 of Maples in my hand, I don't get anything for it if the other player has a 7 of maples in their hand at the end of the game! So, if at the end of the game scoring phase . I have the 7 of maple, and the next highest player only has a 5 of maple, I alone can score Maple tree type. However, if no one has any maple in their hand, we are all tied at zero, and each player can score his or her Maple path. Note that if you have an 8 in your hand, it will count as zero for these purposes if someone else has a 1 of that tree type in their hand. If you win a right to score a tree path but have no eligible paths, then you just do not score it. Therefore: it's very important to know if someone has discarded a "1" in particular of any suit you are trying to score, if you are hoping to use your 8 of that suit. Similarly, it's also important to track whether other players have used their "8," in determining whether you should hold onto your 1 to make sure they cannot use their 8 to score a particular tree path. Tracking cards is important! It's harder the more players you introduce. It is also very important not to place all your, say, maples in your arboretum if you want to score maples! You want to hold some back in your hand. Similar to the game Fox and the Forest, the scoring makes the game pop, and it's genuinely tense as you try to count cards to see if someone is holding a trump card that will invalidate your arboretum you've worked so hard to build.

Es uno de los mejores juegos de cartas que he jugado. Es increíble como con un set tan sencillo de cartas se puede crear una dinámica de juego tan compleja y entretenida. Es sencillo de aprender una vez que lo has jugado un par de veces, es muy competitivo.

I'm going to keep it, because slovakian/Czech (sorry, can't tell which one is it) tree names are actually funny, and language is not required to play it (i've downloaded manual from net) - but keep in mind, this is not english version.