The Little Flower Shop: Open for Business is a charming little package

The Little Flower Shop: Open For Business from Dr. Finn’s Book of Solo Strategy and Word Games is a such a mouthful that I’m just going to call it Little Flower Shop for the rest of this blog entry. It’s a cute little game about managing a cute little flower shop while dealing with market fluctuations. It’s also a Roll and Write (the whole book is nothing but) 

You’ve got six different types of merchandise (half flowers and half tchotchkes), one for each pip of the die. You have a column of ten pieces of stock for each but you don’t have any of them until you start rolling the dice. Off to the side is a row of ten boxes where you’ll be writing down each day’s profits. They also serve as the game’s timer. And on the bottom is the market prices for each item, which will fluctuate throughout the game.

Each turn has three steps. First of all, get inventory. Roll four dice and choose three of them to circle the corresponding merchandise. And, yes, you could theoretically get three of the same item. Second, market fluctuation. Roll two dice and cross off the current price of the corresponding merchandise so the next price in the row is the active one. Prices will end up going all over the place. Third, sell all of one item of merchandise at its current price. Write down the profits and start the next round.

Twice during the game, rounds four and seven, you have to choose a special order that you will try and fill at the end of the game. These are things like five different items or two of the same items. And they are all worth a set price. You also get three rerolls during the game.

After ten rounds, figure out how much money you’ve made. The contents page of the book has a scale for each game to figure out how well you’ve done and so far, I’ve done terribly :P

I quite like Little Flower Shop. I haven’t played any of Dr. Finn’s other Little Flower Shop games so I don’t know how this one compares. But it does feel like a larger game translated into one sheet of paper. (He has made another Roll and Write game for it so I’m planning on looking at that sometime)

Some R&Ws manage to feel bigger than a sheet of paper and, in all honesty, Little Flower Shop doesn’t manage to do that. Six items of merchandise and ten days of sales doesn’t give the game enough scope to be big. But they are enough to give a bite-sized chunk resource management experience. More than that, the game is very clean and accessible. There are no fiddly bits. The game visually just makes sense.

I have played a _lot_ of R&Ws that are filling in grids or filling out boxes. (And had a lot of fun along the way) Little Flower Shop isn’t like that and doesn’t have a ‘traditional’ R&W feel. It’s a R&W for folks who aren’t into R&Ws.

The Little Flower Shop: Open for Business is a cozy little game that doesn’t take a lot of time to play but does give you a charming experience.