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I love growing vegetables. Watching carrots sprout and corn stand tall. But it is THE most frustrating hobby because, no matter how hard you try, sometimes those beans are just not playing ball. Fertiliser, feed, water, music……optimal conditions and yet those onions say no bueno. Thankfully, PLOTALOT is here and it’s a great way to take out frustration on fellow farmers!
Notalotaplots!
In PLOTALOT farming land is scarce so everybody wants prime plots to grow their potatoes and peas. But there are also pesky pests who are hellbent on disrupting your digging plans!
The gameplay is easy to learn. Each farmer may take up to two (different or the same) actions per turn:
You can:
- Lay down a plot (brown card). Everyone has certain sized plots which you can plant the 8 varieties of vegetables into and these brown beds are always highly prized!
- Plant a vegetable in a plot. Veggies have potential point values which can be enhanced depending on companion placement (shown as coins on the cards).
- Add an enhancement (blue) like trowels and other kit to help boost the veggie points and powers!
- Play an attack card (red) on an opponent to meddle with their planting plans! Pests come in all shapes and sizes and effects!; and/or
- Discard a card onto the compost heap.
Harvest Time
In addition, before taking your two actions, you can Harvest (using a purple card) a plot to free up space for more veggies – note this will be done before the first action;
Then, once harvesting and the actions are done, draw your hand back up to five cards from the veg pile or the random mix of enhancements, plots, attacks, and harvest action cards.
The game ends when one of the two draw decks is depleted. Then players take one final turn and add up the points they have been gaining over their turns. The winner is crowned the most fabulous farmer!
Final Thoughts
We really enjoy Plotalot! The artwork is brilliant and there’s alot more fun, take that tactical style gameplay than we were expecting! It also scales well as the designer has created a quick (20misn or so) playing two player mode which rejigs the starting plots, removes some of the cards, and keeps the pests under control to avoid attack rallies! (although you can play with the full deck too for a longer 30-45 minute game).
The pests and actions all link well to the agricultural theme. I love the Helpful Hedgehog who valiantly fends off attacks! Plus, having cards that can help and benefit you as well as those which straight up fiddle with your farming foes brings a nice balance – the cards that temporarily protect your plots from attacks are particularly useful! Each turn you’ve got to weigh up your actions – plant veg, harvest now, go pick on someone else’s plot, or focus on your own farm. And sometimes, discarding a card into the compost is a key way to refresh your choices for the next turn.
My husband always has a most excellent poker-face whereas my intentions are visibly spread all over mine. And in this game, if I have a good attack card in hand, he knows it! He might not know what it is, or when I am going to use it, but he definitely gears up in readiness! Stockpiling Polytunnels and Bug Spray is therefore one of his tactics of choice when playing me! It doesn’t always help though as some attacks like exploding pumpkins can be done no matter how hard he tries to fend off my farming fiddles! Revenge thy name is edible orange goo! Haha
As mentioned, I love the designs in PLOTALOT and the components including the deck boards are lovely. They are printed on responsibly sourced materials and the game doesn’t include any single use plastic either which is great to know. I also really like the companion planting and giant vegetable scoring potential which bring added decision dilemmas and strategy to each turn. It also means that no two games ever play out the same which is great for replayability, and the actions help mitigate the luck of the draw! Any nature themed game is always going to get my attention, but the cards in this game are so colourful and pretty that they really do enchant me.
I’m sad there’s no solo mode but that’s only because I would like the opportunity to play it more! PLOTALOT is a colourful, clever, card drafting collection game that let’s us flex our mean farmer muscles in a really fun way!
That concludes our second opinion on Plotalot. Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy Plotalot today click here! Or, to read our other review on this game you can click here.
