Herbaceous is a drafting and set collection card game. Enjoy the flavors and art as you plant your own garden to complete your collection!
Herbaceous Card Game Stats:
Players: 1-4 players
Time: 20 minutes
Ages: 8+
By: Steve Finn, Eduardo Baraf and Beth Sorbel
Retail price: ~$21
Categories: Card, Drafting, Set Collection
How to Play Herbaceous:
Players try to collect and pot herbs in certain combinations to score the most points. First, players start by laying out their four container cards in their private garden. The deck of herb cards is shuffled and placed near the middle of the playing area.
The first player will draw a card from the deck and choose to add the card to their private garden or to the middle of the table in the community garden. The player draws one more card. If the player had added the card to their private garden, this next card will go to the community garden and vice versa.
Similarly the next player will take their turn, but now players have an opportunity to collect by taking cards from the community garden and their private garden to score a set. One a container card is planted and scored, it cannot be used again.
There are also a couple of special cards and in the expansion, flavor cards can mix up the game play a bit.
Play continues until there are no more container cards to score. The player with the highest score wins!
Herbaceous Game Review:
First of all, the game is stunning and beautiful. The summary on the box, “relax while enjoying this elegant game of picking and potting herbs,” accurately describes the game play. It is difficult to play this game too competitively because the artwork is so relaxing and whimsical.
For a simple card game, they were able to create a whole little world. I like the dimension added with the little garden stakes that define each player’s private garden. It fits in with the theme perfectly, and the extra component sets the game apart from other card games.
I love the little bit of strategy and figuring out how I can score more points. Also, if other players have scored a certain set, they can no longer score that set. That makes it easier to know if you should score on your turn or wait and hope no one else takes the cards you need form the community garden.
The game is so quick, we wanted to play again right away. I could see this game being a great hit with families, and a great filler game before or in-between longer games.
Fans of games like Sushi Go will love Herbaceous! This game was recently funded on kickstarter and is available from select online retailers.
Thank you to Pencil First Games for sending this game to Unfiltered Gamer. The review is our honest opinion of the game.
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This game looks very fun. Thanks for sharing!