Solar Gardens Review - A Light And Bright Victory Point Game For A Casual Crowd

For board games with a futuristic setting it can be fun to be in the depths of space, or in a Blade Runner-esc future of grit and steel, but it can also be just as refreshing for a game to be in a utopic future of glass buildings, sunny skies, and gardens all around you. That last one is the exact setting of Darrington Press and Designer, Alex Cutler's, new Victory Point game Solar Gardens.

The premise of Solar Gardens is quite simple: spend each turn adding tiles to your garden — a 4x4 grid set on the top of a skyscraper — and position them in a way that will help you earn Victory Points and win the game.

What's In The Solar Gardens Box?

Within the Solar Gardens box, you'll find the following:

• Rulebook
• Score Sheets
• 5x Identical Game Boards
• 5x Scoring Reference Cards
• 1x Starting Player Token
• 90x Garden Tiles

Getting set up is as easy as handing each player one of the identical game boards (give the player with the starting board the Starting Player Token) and shuffling and placing each of the Garden Tiles facedown.

Each player can additionally be handed a scoring reference, especially useful if you're a new player and want to get a better idea of what your aim should be. Starting new Victory Point games, I often find that the hardest part is keeping track of what you're trying to score, or at least if it's all only present in the rulebook, it's a lot of people asking to see it. These Scoring References are high quality, clear, and easy to share.

Solar Gardens wasn't just an easy game to set up, but to teach it took less than five minutes. I wouldn't say that it's specifically targeted at a younger age group, but maybe a better target would be to say those who want to play a quick board game and want a lesser amount of antagonism from other players. Solar Gardens is a light-hearted and fun experience for the whole family.

The only complaint I might have is that the inside of the box is just empty space for you to dump 90 Garden Tiles into between games. Some wooden grooves to hold the pieces in place would assist in starting the game a bit faster, and not needing to re-flip all tiles to the correct side.

Taking Turns To Build Your Garden

Each turn, the Starting Player will draw a number of Garden Tiles equal to one more than players and flip over the one on top. From there, they can decide if they want to add that Tile to their garden or pass it on to the next player clockwise in rotation.. This tile is passed down the line until it is claimed.

As you've drawn one additional Garden Tile there is one tile that you can discard a round if it fits no one's board, but after that what tile you're left with is what you get.

After a turn has concluded, the Starting Player will shift clockwise, and the process will repeat again.

I really liked the idea of it not just being a game of blind drawing, but a game of chance. If you have a tile in your hand that might contribute two points, do you want to settle with that, or do you think another token in the stack might yield you better results?

Advanced Strategy With Familiarity

During my games, it was already a fun enough time just to work on my own board, but I can also see a lot of strategy for more experienced players who aren't just looking at their own board, but the boards of their friends/opponents.

Unlike other Victory Point games like Ticket to Ride there isn't a central place that players are playing, getting in one another's way. If you're looking at a token that might only get you one point… but could lead to the player to the left earning four points then it might just be worth you taking that to deprive them.

Scoring Is Simple Enough

While the Scoring References are a great aid in the scoring process itself, for Solar Gardens is incredibly easy to keep track of. The Rows and Columns want you to get four wind farms or four solar panels, respectively, to earn 1-4 points; your longest path is 1 point per path, connected animal habitats are three points (or 5 if you have all), and enclosed gardens with watering facilities earn additional points. There are also just statues that earn points based on their number of loops.

Each Garden Tile you place has the potential to have a number of different features. One might have two Solar Panels and a Wind Farm, another might have a hen house, an apiary, and a solar panel, and a third could just have a habitat and a three-point statue.

I found that even if a tile I drew didn't have exactly what I was looking for, there was normally some benefit in placing the tile.

A few Victory Point games I've played in the past have either felt like there was one single objective that was just too good to be true and all players chased that down, or if you went for one objective at the beginning and got poor luck, you were essentially out of the race. 

In Solar Gardens, the feeling of always progressing towards multiple goals did a great jobof  keeping everyone not only engaged but in closer standing.

Solar Gardens Review | Final Thoughts

Solar Gardens is a great representation of a game not needing the deepest mechanics or the longest runtime to be a fun game. For casual board gamers or a younger audience, this is a great way to get into a Victory Point game that might only take 20-30 minutes of your time.

As you play it more, you'll start to see patterns, and while there's definitely some skill to develop — focusing not only on your own board but on your friend's boards — Solar Gardens serves as a great launching point into some of those harder or antagonistic Victory Point games.

I can see Solar Gardens becoming a well-loved part of anyone's collection for that game to bring out when you just want to play a light board game.

Solar Gardens was reviewed using a copy of the game provided by Darrington Press. All photos were taken during the course of the review.