If you were to look in my board game collection, you’d see that I don’t own any games that fit the “environmental games” theme category according to Board Game Geek’s website. Outside of Fireside Games’ HotShots, a cooperative game about forest firefighters and Bob Ross: The Art of Chill Game, the natural world and nature is just a category of tabletop games that I have overlooked until now. That being said, I feel I must also disclose that aside from Tokaido, the Golden Ages of the Far East was never a theme that drew my interest. Sitting down to play and review Tang Garden, was truly a new experience into two genres of board games very new and fresh to me.
Today we are going to look at Tang Garden from ThunderGryph Games and distributed by Lucky Duck Games in the US. It is designed by Francesco Testini and Pierluca Zizzi with artwork by Matthew Mizak. We’d like to thank Lucky Duck for the opportunity to review this game.
Game Information
Game: Tang Garden (2020)
Mechanics: Card Drafting, Set Collection, Tile Placement, Variable Player Powers
Time: 40-60 Minutes
# of players: 1 - 4 players
Age: 14+
Designer: Francesco Testini, Pierluca Zizzi
Artist: Matthew Mizak
Publisher: ThunderGryph Games & Lucky Duck Games
Overview
Tang Garden is a recreation of the first golden age of China - a time period of ancient China where the iconic Chinese gardens were created and developed. You, the player, act as an Imperial Garden Designer called upon, with various game mechanics, to build the most incredible garden while balancing the elements of Nature. You will progressively build a garden by creating the landscape, placing the scenery and projecting their vision through vertical panoramas. During the construction (game play), various characters will visit the garden to admire the surroundings and the way the natural elements coexist in the most breathtaking scenery humankind has ever laid their eyes upon.
Components
Let me just start with one word: Artistry. In a game about designing a beautiful garden, the publishers pulled out all the stops with breathtaking components for Tang Garden. And there is even a solid insert for the al of the base game components. This is a game where the retail edition quality is something you expect from a Kickstarter Edition of a game. I can only imaged what the Kickstarter components look like. Inside you have the rulebook, the garden board, one double-sided starting tile, 60 garden tiles (20 for each faction of nature), 54 decoration cards, 60 coins, 16 lantern tokens, 4 solo lantern tokens, 4 player boards, 12 character cards, 12 miniatures, 8 large landscape tiles, 12 small landscape tiles, 8 large landscape, 8 small landscape tokens, 36 decorations (3D gazebos- plastic ones at that, 3D cardboard trees of various types, fish tokens, lotus tokens, 3D bridges), 12 scoring track cubes, 4 character tokens, 1 engineer (first player token) all in the base game box. Now, if that sounds like a lot - it is. The game is a beautiful landscape building of a table hog. If you have a smaller table, you might even need a snack table or two to display the components and get ready for game play. And if you want more Tang Garden there is even SIX expansions that are offered.
You read correct, there are SIX expansions that are offered, along with a soundtrack to download while you play. All extras of course, with plans of releasing scenarios for the players to use to vary the game play each time the game hits the table. But lets get back to the base game.
Gameplay
The game offers a tremendous amount of variety in it’s mechanics from card drafting, set collection, tile placement, variable player powers, to a bit of tableau building/usage, and an in-game economy to purchase various things.
Players will take turns by playing one of the two actions available in the game:
1) Placing tiles and matching the elements to increase their personal nature balance and unlock more character miniatures.
By balancing the nature elements on the player boards, players will attract new characters into the garden. On each player turn, if the elements are balanced (which is on the track in front of the player), the player will have to choose one miniature from the ones available and finally decide which one of the characters will be placed in the garden, orienting them towards their favorite background, while keeping the other with you to keep exploiting its ability.
2) Draw decoration cards and place one on the board to get prestige by completing various collections if decoration cards.
Players will draw a quantity of cards based on the board state and choose one to keep. Players will then have to place the chosen decoration in one of the available spots in the garden, creating a unique and seamless scenario that will never be the same.
During the game, by placing tiles on special parts of the board, you will be able to place a panorama tile, a new element that adds a never ending perspective for the visitors. Both small and big panoramas will be placed perpendicularly to the board by attaching it to the board insert and creating a stunning seamless look on the four sides of the board. The Panoramas will interact with the characters at the end of the game by giving prestige points based on what your visitor sees and likes. At the end of the game, the player with the most prestige will be the winner.
Final Thoughts
The art of the game is clearly phenomenal. Crisp, simple yet elegant, and the 3D components from the trees to the bridges add something extra to the game that almost bring it to life like a pop-up book from one’s childhood. If you have the soundtrack playing and players who enjoy this type of thing I’m sure only adds to the experience. You will feel like you have been transported back to ancient China. The game set-up takes up room, it's a table hog, so I suggest a 5-6 ft. table if you have one. The rulebook was well constructed. I can vouch for a rule book that adds extra explanations of the symbology that goes with each character. The box holds all of the components very neatly and has enough ziplock bags to hold everything.
This game is crunchy and thinky enough for the more hardcore gamer, yet also very relaxing. There is not a tremendous amount of player interaction, so you need to make sure you have the right kind of crowd with you that will provide engagement or keep things lively so no one falls asleep. If you have a spouse or significant other that enjoys games with multiple mechanics, this is a great Friday night or weekend “stay home” date night with a glass of wine kind of game.
I do have two issues with the game, and please if you read this, understand that my background of experience with tabletop games is still fairly “young” so take it with a grain of salt:
First off, I think the mechanics are too much. I think they are trying to cram and jam a plethora of things into the game to bring in every aspect of feudal China. While I appreciate what they have done, I wonder if things could have been more streamlined. Keep the flavor - but lose some of the crunch, if you will excuse the food analogy. Secondly, while all of the art is very beautiful, there are tiles where the borders between what is enclosed and what is NOT are very blurred. I would have liked to see a more defined feature on the tiles to let the players know what is finished/enclosed for each branch of Nature.
This is not a game for players new to tabletop games. This is a game for seasoned veterans who love their mechanical Euro, crunchy thinky games. That being said, the art, the components, the game play, and all of the add-ons and available items for the game make it very worthwhile for anyone who has a base of players that enjoy this type of game.
With my family, this would get played once, and then put on the shelf and never come back out. Then again they are casual gamers at heart as well. Tang Garden by is a tremendous offering with many components and add-ons to enhance the game play, but like I stated earlier, I feel that a person has to make sure they have the right kind of audience of table top board gamers to play this title on a consistent basis. Great game. Visually stunning, but one of my recent favorites.