Weeds by TravelSoft (as opposed to other games named Weed or Weeds) is a (currently) free PnP Solitaire Tile-Laying game.
The game consists of twenty-seven cards. Eighteen of them are weed cards, which show a two-by-three grid of six weeds, ranging in size from one to three. The other nine cards are weed killers, which just show a spray bottle. The weeds are color-coded but the fact that they are clearly numbered and slightly size-differenced makes the game gray-scale friendly. In fact, I am colorblind enough that printing the cards in color wouldn't have helped me.
The idea behind the game is that you are trying cover up all the weeds. Draw a card, place a card on your tableau. Cards can overlap (or else there wouldn't be a game) but weeds can only cover weeds of the same size. After you place all the cards, you take the weed killer cards and try to cover up all the weeds or at least as many as you can. That's the basic idea of the game. There are a couple other elements that I'll get to.
Okay, Weeds is pretty clearly a simplified version of Orchard: The Nine Card Solitaire Game. For me, Orchard was a game changer, completely changing my thoughts on how small a tile laying game could be. More than that, Orchard and its sequels, Grove and Forage, are truly solid games. One of the big questions that Weeds has to ask is "Is there a reason why I would play this over Orchard or Grove or Forage?" It also reminds me of a game from a Nine-Card Design Contest, Condense the Code, which also focused on laying cards to take up the smallest area possible.
First of all, I am just going to say that Weeds is not as good as the Orchard family. I do like it more than Condense the Code, whose noteworthy element was legacy play that felt very gimmicky. However, Weeds does bring one thing to the table that I think adds value: variations.
The base game has you use all eighteen weed cards and only six of the weed killer cards. However, the rules include variants for using fewer weed cards (and even identifies the two hardest-to-cover cards) and tweaking the number of weed killer cards, up to the complete nine. Shuffling all twenty-seven cards together and play the weed killer cards as they come out. And encouragement to make up your own variations.
I will also note that Weeds doesn't actually have a formal losing condition. Obviously, if you cover all the weeds, you win. However, there isn't a scale for officially judging how badly you've done. However, with the different variants requiring their own scale, I guess I can forgive that absence.
Weeds has one major issue, which I’ve already gone over. There are better alternatives to it. I've already mentioned the Orchard family, which share a core mechanic but add resource management (you only have so many dice for scoring), scoring, goals and ways to nudge the placement rules. Even if I am looking for a quick tile-laying game where I don't have to worry about dice and tokens, I would reach for Ukiyo or Confusing Lands or part of the Sprawlopolis family first.
With that said, Weeds should still get some play. There are too many times when I am too brain foggy to really do an Orchard or Spawlopolis game justice but I could still handle Weeds. The fact that you can easily shrink the game just makes that use even easier.
Weeds isn't a bad game. I don't mind having it around. However, there's a bunch of games I recommend before it.
https://travelsoft.ca/weeds.php
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