Review: Four Gardens
Overview
Four Gardens is a light, entry level resource management and set collection game. Players take turns collecting resources and using them to complete cards in an attempt to finish beautiful sets of panoramas.
Gameplay
Let's start with the obvious. Four Gardens is a game relying heavily on a gimmick. Similar to other light games, like Planet or Camel Cup, it's incredibly important that the gimmick is designed not just to be unique, but that it functions as a game piece on the table. I'm happy to say that, like the games listed above, Four Gardens' gimmick succeeds at both.
The gimmick, a four story pagoda that sits in the middle of the table, is easy to assemble, easy to store, sturdy during play, and creates interesting decisions for players during gameplay. Each of its four levels spins independently and moves the levels above it along with it as intended. It disassembles easily and stores safely in the box. It’s a home run of board game design and manufacturing. I love it.
Ok, we’ve plopped this awesome pagoda down in the middle of the table, but now how do we play?
At its core the game is simple. Players start each turn with five cards in their hand, and can perform three actions, removing a card from their hand each time they do. The possible actions include:
Lay Groundwork: players place the card down in front of them with the intention of spending resources to build the card. Players can only ever have three unbuilt cards in front of them, so knowing which cards you most want to build is important. Each card will need a combination of resources that can include stone, water, wood, and plant.
Gain Resources: players can gain the resources needed for their cards in one of two ways, depending on the card action listed.
The lame way: discard the card to gain one wild resource.
The COOL way: discard the card to gain resources using the pagoda. To do so, spin the pagoda level shown on the card 90 degrees in either direction, then take resources starting at the top or bottom as indicated until you can hold no more resources. It's important to note here that you can’t skip resources. If the pagoda tells you to take 3 wood first, you must do that, even if it means missing out on plants or water on a lower level. Which direction you move the pagoda is of vital importance.
Allocate Resources: players move resources previously collected onto cards that need them or discard them to make room for more useful resources in the future.
Once a card is completed, it's flipped over and forms part of one of four possible panoramas. These panoramas range from as few as two to as many as five cards. Completing a panorama can earn players bonuses, including extra space for resources, wild resources, and victory points.
Each card also has a god symbol which moves players up the corresponding score track. But, importantly, each card’s god symbol is triggered again when a different card is played into the same panorama. This is the major way to score victory points in the game.
Once their turn is over, each player draws back up to five cards. The game ends when one player has ten complete panorama cards in their display, and the player with the most victory points wins.
Components
We’ve already talked at length about the pagoda, so I won’t mention it here again.
The rest of the components are fantastic as well. The cards are thick and flexible, great for shuffling, and the art on the landscape side of the cards is beautiful. The wooden and cardboard components are thick and of good quality. Everything about this production is great.
Except....
I’ve mentioned the storage for the pagoda is fantastic, and it is, with the pagoda is very unlikely to be damaged in transport. But the rest of the component storage is awful. Unfortunately if you turn Four Gardens sideways even a little bit, everything but the pagoda is going to fall out of its lovely designed insert. And unlike the many, many other board games that have horrific inserts, it's hard to replace the insert with plastic baggies due to the pagoda storage.
I know, I know, first world problems. But I have to be honest, nothing in the board gaming world annoys me more than board game inserts that don’t work. It’s right up there with other horrible things in life like “books from the same publisher that are different sizes™” and famine. Crimes against humanity!
Fun Factor
As one might expect from Four Gardens, the main draw here is that pagoda. Most of the interesting decisions revolve (pun intended) deciding when and how to collect resources from it. Each card has a specific level to rotate and a specific direction to take resources from, so it’s important to think ahead when drawing new cards.
The resource management in Four Gardens is much tighter than in similar set collection games such as Splendor or Century: Spice Road. There will be turns where part of your resource allocation action is to remove potentially unwanted resources to open up space on future turns.
Unfortunately for me, the decision space outside of the pagoda resource selection felt lacking. It’s important to collect the correct combinations of panorama cards and god symbols, but because of how many cards are in the deck, and how many combinations of landscape/god symbols there were, I never felt that waiting for a particular god symbol was worth the opportunity cost. Players will be looking for specific landscape cards to complete their panorama, and turning down the opportunity to build that piece of the landscape will almost never be worth fishing for a more desirable god symbol.
The game is very tactical and, while that’s not always a bad thing, especially for a light game, it does mean that players' control over the main mechanism for scoring victory points is limited. If, like me, that is something that bothers you, this one might not be for you.
Four Gardens fills a similar space to Splendor or Century: Spice Road. It’s great to introduce to those players that are new to gaming or enjoy lighter experiences, but it lacks enough depth in decisions to justify multiple plays for some players. Similar to Planet, Four Gardens' will stick around in my collection for use as an introductory game until, when a player falls in love with it, I will let them take it home with them to love and cherish.
Final Verdict
✅ Amazing table presence, fantastic components
✅ interesting resource management puzzle
❌ Lacking deep decision space
❌ Minor storage issues
Rating: 6/10
A review copy was kindly provided by Arcane Wonders
