Botanicus Board Game Review

My wife loves games about plants, so I knew before we started that Bontanicus was probably going to be something our gaming group enjoyed. And for the most part, I was really correct about that. It could be that I ran away with the score on more than a few occasions, or because tabling and teaching this game is a piece of cake. Either way, there is definitely a need for a larger, easy to play game in the board game industry, and Botanicus seems to fit this bill really nicely.

In Botanicus, players will be moving along tracks, walking through their gardens, attempting to plant and water plants to fulfill various tasks, both basic tasks and advanced tasks. Rules restrict where plants can be planted – in empty plots, in the plots directly around your gardener – and strategic placement is required to maximize points. Each row of your garden will require a certain number and level of plants, and those requirements are VERY specific. If you need three level 1 plants, having anything above level 1 doesn’t help you. After completing basic tasks, you’ll be able to tackle more advanced tasks which might require level 3 or 4 plants, or a combination of all levels.

These will score you points, but it’s not just as simple as that. There are also a number of different tracks you’ll want to move up on, and those tracks might require money. So you’ll need to find ways to get money. How do you move on tracks, plants, water, and make money? It’s all done via a very clever turn mechanism. The bottom of the central board is broken down into columns with various abilities, and each turn, starting from the top of the column and moving down, players will move their pieces one column to the right, selecting one of the 4 actions they wish to take. More often than not, a bonus action will also be available.

Where you decide to place your token in the column will determine where you will play in the next round, so sometimes your choice might be influenced by actions further down the row, or simply a desire to have the most choice by going first. There is no clockwise turn order here.

What I love about Botanicus is that while this is a fairly “large” game in terms of strategy, turn structure, and just length of play, it is also a VERY easy game to teach. We learned how to play with 4 brand new players and finished our first game in about 75 minutes, which is pretty good in my opinion. Turns can become a slog as someone attempts to maximize their actions (and this happened a bit with us), but with a good group I think you could get a 4 player game of this taught and played in an hour. It’s really snappy, and with only a few scoring opportunities – tasks, points earned during the game, and column scoring at the end – there aren’t TOO many things to worry about as you take your turns.

And this is all just for the basic game, which in and of itself is very engaging and fun. There is a more difficult version of the game which changes up a few things and provides an even deeper and more robust experience. And this isn’t modular based difficulty spikes. This is an entirely new board to play on, with different available actions, different paths through the tracks, and more. So often I find that a more difficult mode is more of a tact on experience rather than something well thought out and executed. With Botanicus, you can tell that both the basic version of the game, and the more advanced version of the game, were both well crafted by a dedicated team. Nothing here was added for “fluff.”

For many, they might only play the basic version or might only play the advanced version. For myself, having both is phenomenal. The decision space in the more advanced version of Botanicus is probably a bit too much for my 10 year old to work through, but he can easily play the basic version. So while we play the basic version with him, we tackle the more advanced version with our adult only gaming group. It’s reasons like this that make Botanicus a game that sticks around in our collection as opposed to being moved on from rather quickly.

Even without various modes, however, I think Botanicus is a game that will stay around for the next long while. While I wouldn’t call this a ‘filler’ game since it will take an hour or so to finish, it’s easy to play and minimal teaching makes it an attractive option on board game nights after something a bit heavier and crunchier. You cannot go wrong with putting Botanicus on your shelf, in our opinion. It’s a fantastic game that scales well for a variety of ages and audiences.