Friday, January 17, 2025

Does Orchard:Recipes do enough?

 Orchard was a game that revised my ideas about what you could do with nine cards. While I had played multiple tile-laying games that had only eighteen cards, I felt nine cards wouldn’t leave enough decisions. But Orchard did it.


And Grove took that formula and elevated it. And a major way that it did it was to add Sprawlopolis-style goals with scoring targets. And while I did still play Orchard, I liked Grove more.

Orchard:Recipes is an expansion that adds those goals to Orchard.

Truth to tell, the biggest effect Orchard:Recipes had me was appreciate other elements of Grove (and later Forage when I learned that game) Mind you, I do like having a clear win-lose condition in solitaire games because it creates a clear goal beyond ‘beat your own score’ or ‘just do this activity’ So Orchard:Recipes does improve the game for me.

Grove has glades, which are effectively blank squares. They add a lot of flexibility to your ability to place tiles. They make the game sort of easier but also more interesting.

In comparison, Orchard is a lot less forgiving. Every square has a type of tree and that makes placement a lot more restrictive. Having a way to get bonus points and a point goal doesn’t change that.

I am glad I made and tried Orchard:Recipes. However, I still prefer Grove (and Forage)

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