Vadoran Gardens

Have you played VADORAN GARDENS? It’s a cute looking cube box from City of Games – the publisher of the Isle of Cats and Race to the Raft. There’s a wee creature on it (a Vadoran pup) who is trying to join the prestigious Cyrrus Order, and a very pretty font.

Well, that’s as far as the cute and cuddly goes. This game is a card patching brain burner and it drives me mad in the best possible way! And now, thanks to a 2023 rules refresh, I can go crazy without inflicting the card induced coo-coo on my husband!

I won’t go into the ins and outs of the multiplayer experience here. But to summarise, over 10 rounds you are trying to create a horizontally connected pathways in grass, sand, soil, and water through an enchanted garden.

The garden cards contain different terrain types and animal, statue and flower task icons that will score points based on the scoring objectives in play for the game. There are also some lost items which you can collect and exchange for points at end game if you still have the required icons visible. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, connected areas will score 1 point per square if they have at least 3 matching task icons in it. Turn order for picking cards from the offer row in the next round is determined by which card you draft from the active row in the current round (prioritising from left to right). Placing cards is done simultaneously once every player has their hand of cards fully stocked.

The rub is that each new card can only be placed on top of the last card you placed, and may only cover the 1,2, or 3 squares in the rightmost column of that previous card. If that wasn’t enough, the maximum height of your path is 5 squares and the drafting row from the turn before has a lesson card which either (a) restricts what card from your hand can be placed down in your current turn (usually by specifying a symbol type) or (b) dictates in what orientation the card you lay must be placed. The standard rule is that cards cannot be played upside down or on their side (i.e. the symbols have to be at the top). But some lesson cards literally flip this rule on its head!

This game hurts my brain so much. I feel like it shouldn’t given its diminutive size and filler-length play time. But it does. And that’s excellent!

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves!

In solo mode, I am battling against my Vadoran sister. It basically follows the 2P set up (and you can also implement the advanced rule set when playing alone). Difficulty level is set by how many Black Vadoran meeples are in play in the game which allow her to claim achievements (3,4,5, or insane 7) before I can get there and claim my meagre 1 goal per type! My sister always gets the highest point available achievement when she has satisfied the criteria. This is the main way she scores, but she will also get points (1,2,3 or insane 5) for each grass, soil or water square in my path that are not part of a connected, scoring group, and any lost items we don’t return (by having matching visible icons in my path at end game).

Her turns are prescribed – each round her card of choice in the drafting row will be the one that (a) matches the symbol on the lesson card and (b) has the fewest symbols in total – if there’s a tie, she favours the one furthest left. And in a wee twist, her card are just overlapped vertically into a column from top to bottom with each new card overlapping the bottom row of the one played previously.

Final Thoughts

This game burns my brain. Spatially and strategically, Vadoran Gardens is a lot trickier than it looks! Cute but deadly to my spatially challenged ND grey matter! Being able to see the upcoming lesson theoretically helps with planning picking and placing but also causes panic as I realise how after playing my very first card I could have messed everything up! Haha

And in solo mode, it’s no less synapse sizzling. I am very pleased that I don’t have to think for or build my sister’s path – it’s just draft, stack, and cross check the achievements as icons are multiplying in her connected squares of matching territory type. If I had to think about placement optimisation for her as well, it might just melt my mind!