Bloomchasers… a simple, yet rather challenging game

So I still need more practice playing Bloomchasers, but the fun-quotient definitely increases with each play.

I chose to paint the treebase a modeled green. Leaving it brown seemed a little boring. I was tempted to paint that twisty trunk, but as all the branches, flowers, birds, and beehives are solid – it seemed best to leave the trunk solid in pure solidarity. I’m not interested in painting all those bits.

Each player has a different color of flower. Each flower comes in three configurations and each configuration requires different conditions to bloom. The goal is to have more of your color flowers blooming at the end of the game. The end of the game is when all of the branches have been placed on the tree.

I strongly recommend the expansion. It expands play from 4 to 6 players and brings birds and beehives into play. It also brings in Blight for solo play. Birds can move around the tree to block flower buds from blooming. Birds can also give you points at the end of the game. Beehives add bonus points for those who can bring flowers to bloom next to them.

It does take a bit to wrap one’s head around the rules. And the branches are a trifle too loose after being placed, which leads to extremely delicate Jenga-like maneuvering when placing buds or flowers on an extremely full tree. But otherwise the game is beautifully designed.

I first played it with two players. Gameplay lacked unpredictability and left me questioning whether I liked the game. But the second time, I played with four players and it was a great deal of fun. I’m still wrapping my head around how to strategize. The game is clearly as complicated or as simple as you want to make it. One rather wonderful aspect is that how point values are calculated is not determined until the end of the game and unused cards are counted. This can surprisingly make the player who seemed to be losing, the unexpected winner.

It’s a fun game. Entirely different from other games out there. It’s from the creators of Abducktion – which is another terrific game that requires interns on UFOs to abduct ducks. You will also want the expansion for Abducktion. It allows for six players instead of four, and also adds green, sparkly wild ducks – in addition to expanding the cosmic stream for more complicated duck configurations. Easy to learn, but challenging to master. And the little ducks are ridiculously cute.