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Floriferous
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Description
YOUR GARDEN AWAITS
Spend the afternoon in your Floriferous garden. Relax while enjoying this elegant game of strolling through your garden and collecting flowers. Find joy in the abundance of nature.
OBJECTIVE
Find the most joy by collecting flowers and pairing them with abundance, desire, and mastery cards.
GAMEPLAY
Floriferous is played over 3 days, which are divided into 5 turns (or 4 turns for 5 players). Each turn, a player moves one step through the garden. After each move, the player picks up a flower or desire card. After 3 days, players sum their scores for their desires, mastery, and points earned during the game. The player with the most points wins.
FLOWER CARDS & BUGS
There are 5 Types of Flowers in Floriferous: Tulip, Poppy, Lily, Daisy, and Mum each of which comes in 5 Colors: Yellow, White, Pink, Orange, Purple. Many flower cards also have a bug on them: Butterfly, Ladybug, Bee, Moth, and Beetle. These 3 card aspects (flower type, color, and specific bug) are used for scoring Desire, Abundance, and Mastery cards.
DESIRE CARDS
Desire cards appear within the garden and are worth points at the end of the game based on the players collection of Flower Cards. They award points based on the specific requirements on the card.
ABUNDANCE CARDS
Abundance cards appear at the bottom of the garden and are worth points at the end of the game based on the players collection of Flower Cards. The more matching aspects of the arrangement you have, the more they are worth.
SCULPTURE CARDS
Sculpture cards appear within the garden and are worth points at the end of the game depending on who has collected the most sculptures.
FACE DOWN CARDS
These cards are picked up like any other in the garden, the player simply doesn’t know what they are until chosen.
STONES
Stones are within the garden and are collected when the card they are sitting on is taken. Every 2 stones is worth one point at the end of the game (rounding down) and they may help you earn a cup of tea.
THE CUP OF TEA
The cup of tea is awarded at the end to the player who has collected the most stones.
MASTERY CARDS
Mastery cards appear at the top of the garden. These cards are not collected but are scored at the end of each day based on the players collection of Flower Cards. Players compete to score mastery cards first.
Floriferous is another offering from Pencil First games (also responsible for Herbaceous, The Whatnot Cabinet and Sunset over water) and was originally funded on Kickstarter in 2021.
Strolling Through The Garden
Floriferous is a light, card drafting game, where you build your hand of flowers throughout the 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, fulfilling those requirements, and completing bounty cards as quickly as possible.
A Pocket Full Of Posies
Floriferous is divided into 3 rounds, represented as 3 days. Each day, the players take turns (based on where they are in the starting order) to choose flowers to add to their hands. Each flower is one of 5 types (Lily, Daisy, Mum, Poppy and Tulip). The 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.
On Your Turn
You either select one of these cards to add to your Floriferous hand/bouquet, or you could take the desired card available. Desire cards offer bonus points at the end of the game. They include things like 3 points for each butterfly you have, 2 points for each red flower, or increasing points for each different flower you have collected.
There is one final type of card that you may find whilst you amble through the garden, a sculpture card. These are simply scored at the game end as 5 points to the player with the most sculpture cards, 3 to 2nd place, 1 to 3rd place.
Bounty Cards
There are also bounty cards that are available for all players to complete. When you complete one you place one of your tokens on the card marking which round you completed it in. The sooner you complete these, the more points they are worth, but they are still open to everyone to complete. This is a nice touch because instead of a race to complete a card (which we often see in games) everyone can complete them at their own pace or indeed detour to smell a few more Tulips if they prefer!
Having so many options which all score similar amounts of points means that whichever path you choose, you are sure to find joy!
How Does Your Garden Grow?
At the end of each round, any remaining cards are cleared and the ‘garden’ is re-laid for the next day.
Once all rounds are complete, players add up their scores to determine the winner. It is also at this point that the coveted ‘cup of tea’ card is awarded to the player who collected the most stones whilst wandering through the blooms.
Better Than A Real Bouquet
We all thoroughly enjoyed Floriferous. It is very quick to set up and learn, and fast to play. It’s a great warm-up game for a game night, or fantastic if you just have a short time to fill. I can see myself taking this on holiday and enjoying it whilst taking a rest in the shade.
The calm flow, pleasing artwork and pastel colour scheme all play a part in achieving a relaxing game. One player noted that they thought it’s perfect to play when they want to de-stress. It gives you something to focus on, but no one felt it was a highly competitive game where they lamented the loss of much-needed cards. We were all perfectly happy building our beautiful hands and seeing where we end up. If you happen to 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 Mother’s Day. I would much rather give the gift of a never-ending flower bouquet! And more importantly, some quality time spent playing together.
Other Blooms
I have recently been enjoying the calming gaming experience, gone are the days of solitaire to pass the time when we have games with beautiful elements like this one.
Another enjoyable game of a similar style is Sunset over water, the artwork on the cards is even better than Floriferous. If you enjoy Floriferous but are looking to step it up a little but have a similar experience, I would suggest The Whatnot Cabinet, a personal favourite of mine.
I love nature. I love the sights, sounds and smells of nature. And living on and next to farms, well, that’s a pretty bold statement! But it’s true. Animal, vegetable, or mineral – they all have their sweet and sour notes. But one thing I know for sure. When I play Floriferous Solo, it’s a beautiful bouquet of thorny choices!
Pesky Crow
Now, not everything is rosy in the garden. The Pesky Crow is the ornithological antagonist who is intent on disrupting your flow. But the meddling they make is for the best reasons! Their card swapping, stone stealing, objective removing actions are what make this wander through the garden so flipping addictive!
Stone Me
Setting up the solo mode is simple – it’s basically the same as the 2-player set up although the sculpture cards aren’t used. And you can do an extended version (which I always do!) which has 7 cards in a row instead of the usual 5.
Your turn is also the same. You pick a card (either a Garden card or a Desire card) from the garden (collecting any stones on top) and then place your Gardener Pawn in its place.
The only addition is the Pesky Crow Card and the Pesky Crow Action deck which is a small pile of prickliness indeed! Haha. The Crow card is where its stash of stones will sit, and the deck contains the prescribed move the Pesky Crow will take on their “turn in the next column in the Garden”.
In Floriferous, there are only a few moves it will make; it will swap a Garden card in the position shown for another face-down card or for stones, or it will swap a Desire card for another face-down card or for stones. And if you’re still meandering when the Pesky Crow deck runs out, you just shuffle and keep going!
Throwing Shade On My Garden
Sounds like the Pesky Crow will be nothing more than a petty pilferer, but somehow it always goes for what I want. I set up to take the next Desire Card or a gorgeous arrangement and poof. Gone. Swapped for stones that do me no immediate good. I mean, I can’t collect them (although I do stop the Crow from collecting them which is sort of beneficial) and it’s effectively denying me the chance to score those points at end game! I don’t know how it does it. Lady luck must be a bird watcher because these two are definitely in a pact together! And I know I can use my Cup of Tea card to thwart the feathered fiend once per game. But if feels like I’m cheating – like the Crow will mock me for it – so I stand firm and fall with my dignity in tact!
I know you’re thinking to yourself “why would she take stones if they don’t count towards her end score?”. Well, there’s another fiendish feather in this Pesky Crow’s cap. For any stones set out and not collected at the end of the day are taken back to the Crow Card. And if there is ever more than 4 on it, I have to discard one of my cards (unless I can pay with my own stones to discard theirs).
Final Thoughts
I love playing Floriferous solo. I know I sound like such a greedy gamer, but I prefer to play all of my Pencil First Games solo. The direct interaction from the Pesky Crow feels so much more personal than going up against another human player. I don’t know why but it just does. And I love the light but thinky decision space. Choosing between beautiful Garden cards is hard enough. And the arrangements and Bounty cards with their unique scoring criteria present competing goals that vie for attention. Predicting which Desire cards are going to reward you most by end game is also delightfully dilemma driven. It’s almost push your luck as you sacrifice Garden Cards for goals in the hope that the gamble will pay off at end game. And you’re in a race against the rounds in terms of the Bounty cards as their value diminishes the later you achieve them (if at all).
I probably don’t need to mention that Floriferous is also gorgeous on the table. The watercolour artwork is manna for my tired soul and a feast for my worn-out eyes
After a day’s work and life’s dramas, sitting down and wandering through a delightful Garden is just what the doctor ordered. Especially when there is a Pesky Crow in residence!
Zatu Score
You might like
- Relaxing game experience
- Quick to play
- Flower theme
Might not like
- Not much strategy