Step into the radiant future of Solar Gardens!
Solar Gardens is a fun-filled, light-hearted tile-drafting board game where each player will take on the role of a visionary architect specializing in carbon neutral engineering to build a rooftop garden in harmony with nature. Guided by principles of sustainability, innovation, community, and strategy, players must work to harness renewable energy to create tranquil garden environments.
In order for your solar garden to be the winner, your goal is to score the most points by building the most aesthetically pleasing solar farms, windmill systems, water filters, and cultural hubs. Solar Gardens is a wonderful opportunity to discover the power of creativity, and optimism where a brighter future is always within your reach.
Can you and your fellow architects create a self-sufficient, resilient garden before time runs out, or will your rooftop paradise dry up?
As a bonus, Solar Gardens is made of biodegradable, plastic-free materials and uses paper stickers to hold the game box together in transit. Also, it is a part of The National Forest Foundation’s Sapling Program where a portion of your purchase of this amazing game will be donated to help plant trees in national parks around the United States–a benefit of the National Forestry Foundation.
DOWNLOAD THE RULEBOOK
Key Details:
- 2-5 Players
- 30-45 minutes
- Ages 12+
Overview:
Solar Gardens is a tile-drafting strategy game where players compete to create flourishing rooftop gardens by drafting tiles and placing them in their grid, aiming to build the highest-scoring rooftop garden. Each tile represents a different element of a rooftop garden, such as solar panels, wind turbines, plant beds, rainwater collectors, decorative features, and more. In order to win, players must balance aesthetics, energy efficiency, and animal diversity to score more points than their opponents.
Contents:
- 12 Page Rulebook
- Starting Player Token
- 5 Player Aide Boards
- 5 Foldable Player Boards
- 90 Tiles
- 1 scoring pad
Creative Team:
- Game Design: Alex Cutler
- Initial Game Development: Eric Slauson
- Game Development: Aaron Salmonowicz
- Producer: Alex Uboldi
- Graphic Design: Bryan Weiss
- Art: Daniel Clarke
- Editing: Neil Kingham
This tile-drafting game is praised for being "easy to learn" with "excellent" replayability. Customers said it offers a "nice blend of luck and strategy" that's "delightfully hard to master." One reviewer found it "repetitive" and lacking depth. Most enjoyed it as a quick, engaging experience.
A fun tile laying game with quick to learn rules and easy set up for 2-5 players. Tiles are clearly printed and fit the board smoothly. The board has a recess for the tiles that keeps them in the securely play area and folds away to half its size for storage, which also makes it really easy to remove tiles after the game. All materials are made from sustainable material, absolutely no plastic anywhere, and are very sturdy. Scorepad is paper and has lots of pages, but paper quality is smooth enough that pencil erases off it very well so they can all be used multiple times. The lid and box can be used as the tile stock and discard bowls also so it is fully playable straight out of the box.
The game is as much about planning as it is about luck of tile drawing, and the rotating first player system keeps it very fair for tile selection across the entire game. There are multiple ways of scoring and every tile has a benefit, though placement means it doesn't always score on its own and some tiles are much more beneficial than others, depending on what is already on your board.
This game brings out hope and inspiration for a brighter future. It's really fun, too!
I did a learn to play session of this game at Pax unplugged and really enjoyed it. The game is easy to pickup and the reference guide makes it easy to remember how to play. It is a quick game that requires some thought and some luck. I enjoy the game very much and think it is very re-playable.
This game is easy to learn, intriguing to play, and eminently replayable!
This was sent super quick but have not opened it as it is a Christmas gift for my daughter who is a super fan of Critical Role. I’m sure she will love it
My wife, son, and I have a lot of fun with Solar Gardens. We've found it to be a chill experience while still having a healthy amount of strategy, creativity, and competition. I expect this game is going to be played regularly in our home.
I brought Solar Gardens to board game night. We played two games and everyone was enthusiastic and enjoyed the game. The rules were easy to pick up. Players at the table quickly developed a winning strategies. Solar Gardens was a fun new addition to board game night.
It is a tile drafting game. You create a pile, look at the first piece, if you don’t want it you can pass and the next person can take it. That’s it. You do this 16 times. It’s pretty repetitive and feels like it’s missing something.
Very low key, easy to learn but delightfully hard to master. Nice blend of luck and strategy.
Super easy to pick up and start playing. We watched Darrington press play it as we were. Definitely tricky in the right way as well. Excited to play it more this weekend. So far we are batting 1/1 on wins. Having a game night with more people with this as our spotlight game!
I Love this game. Fun to play, comprehensive rules, Fantastic artwork, and superb quality. Fantastic all around!
As expected, a very fun and easy to learn game, ideal for evenings with family or friends... with a nod to sustainability and how not to devastate our beautiful Blue Planet
An excellent, quick playing, Euro-style tile drafting game. The gameplay reminds me of Sagrada, although the strategy and mechanics are a bit different. Plays in about 15-20 minutes, at least with two players. Will be interesting to see how additional players affect the strategy.
