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Mother’s Day is just around the corner and while a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates may be the traditional gifts, we’re here to offer you some other inspiration.
Spending time together whilst playing a game could be a lovely gift for everyone, especially on Mother's Day. Playing and laughing together with our families and friends is something we are all passionate about here on the blogging team. We think one of these flower, plant or chocolate themed games would be an exciting twist on the traditional presents and may just ‘make your Mother’s day’!
Floriferous By Alana Wren
When considering games that would make a good Mother’s Day gift, Floriferous came to mind straight away.
Floriferous is a light, card drafting game, where you build your hand of flowers throughout play in order to score the most joy/points at game end. It is a wonderfully calm, pretty offering that falls into the relaxing gaming category.
There are various ways to score points. Collecting arrangement cards and creating that arrangement, collecting desire cards and fulfilling those requirements and completing bounty cards as quickly as possible.
Floriferous is divided into 3 rounds represented as 3 days. Each day the players take it in turns to choose flowers to add to their hand. Each flower is one of 5 types (Lily, Daisy, Mum, Poppy and Tulip). Each flower is also one of 5 colours (Orange, pink, white, yellow and purple). Some flower cards also have an insect on them (Butterfly, Ladybird, Moth, Beetle and Bee).
There are also arrangement cards available throughout the garden. These each have 3 requirements you need in order to create that arrangement. For example you may need a Lily, any purple flower and a butterfly. If by game end you have these in your hand you will score full points for that arrangement card.
The calm flow, pleasing artwork and pastel colour scheme all play a part in achieving a relaxing game. It’s very enjoyable to build beautiful bouquets and if you win the ‘cup of tea bonus’ so much the better!
I think Floriferous would be an excellent alternative to a real bunch of flowers for Mothers Day. I would much rather give the gift of a never-ending flower bouquet! And more importantly some quality time spent playing together.
Village Green By Favouritefoe
Ah, what an idyllic English countryside scene…….flowers, fountains, a rural church……….oh and a MEGA COMPETITVE VILLAGE SHOW! If your mum is anything like me, this is the perfect combination of delight and devilish play!
Village Green is one of my favourite open drafting, pattern matching, puzzly games. The rules are simple, the playtime short, and the artwork is delightful. Oh, and best of all, it is a brilliant soloable game. In truth, I actually prefer it solo (no, I don’t like to share and yes I am a greedy gamer haha!). Because it’s 10 minutes of me-time. Not lawyer me. Not wife me. Not mummy me. Just gamer-me. And doesn’t every mum deserve at least 10 minutes of that on her special day?
In the MP game you are gardeners competing for the Village Green of the Year competition. And you win by arranging beautiful features according to specific Village Show Awards. Each turn you’ll be picking and placing cards into your 9 (3x3) Village card tableau (your Green). But each feature Village card you lay down can only be placed adjacent to another Village card if it has a matching flower type and/or colour symbol. And with such a small game space, this becomes incredibly tight incredibly quickly!
The Award cards that go round the edge of your Green contain the scoring objectives for that particular row/column, and so each card could have the potential to score twice (or not at all!) And whilst you cannot cover up placed Village cards, you can reserve spots for later covering using lawn cards, and overlay Awards with different ones if more appropriate ones become available for picking from the market!
Village Green is a brilliant small box game, and solo mode works very similarly with a few easy tweaks. If you’re looking for a beautiful game for your mum this Mother's Day that’s going to bring way more joy than a bunch of blooms, I’d definitely recommend Village Green!
Azul Master Chocolatier By Dan Street-Phillips
What nicer way to show you care on Mother’s Day than by a beautiful box of chocolates. Twenty-five little squares, all grouped in different colours and textures. You lift the lid and the only thing missing is that smell of chocolate that usually explodes out of the packaging. Why? Because sadly Azul Master Chocolatier isn’t actual real chocolate. Instead, however, you have the beautiful Bakelite tiles you have become to know and love as part of the Azul brand.
Master Chocolatier takes the original game and takes the blue and white of the Portuguese tiles and instead makes each one look like a perfectly formed piece of chocolate. So good in fact you will need to keep them away from children in case they try and eat them! But the game is the same.
You take tiles on your turn from a number of shared ‘factory spaces’. Each time, you must take all the same colour and add them to your board. At the end of each round, when all shared tiles have been taken, you move them to fill certain patterns on your player mat. This game is a very chilled, warm hug of a game. It has a bit of a puzzle that can sometimes work against you but on the whole, this is the perfect cup of tea game.
Despite this version being merely a re-skin of the original, there is one additional variation that comes in the box. On the reverse of the factory spaces are different rules for what happens to remaining tiles after you have taken them. Usually any tiles left behind go into the middle. One factory space now moves them to adjacent spaces. One allows you to place extra tiles at the beginning of the round meaning more options for you to select from. It isn’t wildly game changing but will change things up enough to keep it from getting stale. So put the kettle on, do what we did and buy some chocolates to reward a good tile placement, and enjoy a cosy afternoon with the most important woman in your life.
Verdant By Andy Broomhead
Sure, a bunch of flowers is nice, but what about a nice plant? How about two or three or seven? Having greenery bursting to life in every room is a wonderful year-round gift.
Verdant, from perennial puzzle producers Flatout Games has you wrestling with where to put your succulents, cacti and ferns so they have the optimal lighting conditions to thrive in your home, all whilst adorning rooms with pets and furniture to maximise your score.
Don’t let Beth Sobel’s stunning art fool you – this is a tight puzzle that’s really easy to understand, but harder to succeed at. After placing your starting room and plant cards, you have just 13 turns to maximise your 3x5 tableau.
Taking a combination of card and token will feel familiar if you’ve played Cascadia, but this has an even more serene feel, while simultaneously having more to juggle. Plants want to be adjacent to their preferred type of light (full sun, complete shade or a mixture), and they’ll score more points for being next to room cards of matching colours, but they’ll score even more if those rooms have complementary furniture or animal tokens.
You need good light to get verdancy otherwise your plant cards won’t score anything. You’ll really need to make use of bonus tiles to get your plants in full bloom before anyone else so you can score a potting bonus. There’s also a subtle push/pull between the scoring possibilities, where you’ll likely have to sacrifice something as your tableau fills up and your choices become limited.
Verdant is a gorgeous game, with wonderfully illustrated plants, combined with some truly vibrant colours. It’s a step-up from a gateway game, but it’s definitely a family friendly puzzle. If your mum loves plants, why not give her all 60 of the cards in Verdant and sit down to enjoy this together on Mother's Day.
Blossoms By Hannah Blacknell
Nothing says I love you like a hand-crafted bouquet of flowers, even if that bouquet is made of cards right? Blossoms is a two player specific card game where players are trying to be the person to create the best bouquet worth the most points. This game is perfect to get for your mum even if they are not the most experienced gamer. The game is short and very easy to learn and consists only of a deck of custom cards, some flowerpots and a few action tokens.
During the game you can do one of three actions, growth, cut or special. In growth you will draw a card from the deck and place it into a pot with a matching flower type, if you are unable to place the flower card drawn, then your round will end here. You are pushing your luck to keep trying to grow your flowers as tall as possible before you cut them down for the bouquet. The higher the flowers are able to grow then the more points they will be worth. Cutting down your flowers is another of the actions and you can then score the points of one of your pots of flowers. This will end your round.
You can also use your special action tokens to perform one extra action depending on which pot you select. Play continues like this until the last card is drawn, at which point, you tally up the scores to reveal a winner. However if it is Mother’s Day, I would advise ensuring that mummy wins!
We hope however you're celebrating Mother's Day (even if you're not), you enjoy the day and get some good gaming fun in!