Verdict
Solar Gardens is simple and polished, like a modern art sculpture in a carbon-neutral garden. This makes it an approachable gateway game and a relaxing tile-drafting experience, but it also offers very little strategy. Limited board space, luck-based mechanics, and a lack of player interaction make this a passive game that lovers of complexity will want to avoid. Solar Gardens delivers a simple concept elegantly, but so many others have made this same idea more interesting.
- Easy to learn
- Well-balanced gameplay
- Relaxing tile drafting
- Almost no player interaction
- Heavily luck-based
- Very little strategy
Solar Gardens is a board game that helps you design your own little slice of utopia - an eco-friendly garden on the roof of a skyscraper. Unfortunately for you, every other rooftop gardener in the area has had the same idea. Resources are limited, so you'll have to contend with rival designers when sourcing materials.
This might make Solar Gardens sound competitive - even cutthroat - but even when resources are scarce, the game's utopian attitude shines through. Collecting flowers and features for your garden is simple and soothing. The soil for planting strategies is, however, sadly shallow.
A heads up, before we dive deeper. This Solar Gardens review was made possible by the publisher, Darrington Press, who kindly provided a copy of the game for testing.
What is Solar Gardens?
At its core, Solar Gardens is a tile-drafting game. The starting player draws a tile from a face-down deck, and they can choose to place it in their rooftop garden or pass it to the next player. Everyone gets a chance to play or pass on a tile at least once, and the round ends when each garden sports a shiny new feature. Rinse and repeat until every rooftop is filled.
Each garden feature scores slightly differently. You must have at least four solar panels or wind turbines in a row or column to score them at all, and their worth is determined by the exact row or column you target. Animal habitats score points when they're adjacent to identical habitats, but you'll also get a bonus if you can include one of each in your garden. There are additional points up for grabs for the longest path, and you'll score extra points for enclosed gardens and sculptures.
Solar Gardens takes around 30 to 45 minutes to complete. As with most of the best board games, the highest-scoring player is declared the winner.
What's good about Solar Gardens?
Solar Garden's biggest selling point is its simplicity. It's a highly approachable game that respects your time, and it'd make an excellent gateway game for newcomers to the hobby.
Like many tile games, drafting and placing pieces is tactile and, in its own way, rather relaxing. Solar Gardens follows the 'cozy gaming' trail that's been blazed by titles like Carcassonne, Azul, Calico, and Harmonies.
It's a careful, solitary puzzle game that doesn't throw too many decisions at you at once. Instead, you take each new tile as it comes, adapting your strategies to the features that luck throws at you.
It helps that Solar Gardens is well-balanced. No player is likely to pull ahead, leaving others unable to catch up with their score. Even when the tiles you pull don't fit your perfect garden plan, victory always feels within reach.
What's not good about Solar Gardens?
Solar Gardens' greatest strength also happens to be its one major weakness. It's all about perspective; one player's prized peony is another's thorny weed. Anyone who loves strategy board games will, sadly, find Solar Gardens' simplicity strangling.
Your garden only has room for 16 tiles, and Solar Gardens suffers for this severe lack of space. There are few opportunities to create interesting interactions when placing tiles, and with only one tile to consider at a time, your chances to act strategically are limited.
This is further hampered by the complete lack of player interaction in Solar Gardens. Drafting games usually add spice by giving you opportunities to 'hate draft' a tile or card that you know your rival is gunning for. This passive-aggressive gameplay is what makes Carcassonne and Azul so addictive.
Solar Gardens leaves this particular plot barren, however. With such limited space on your board, you can't afford to draft a tile that doesn't suit you, even if it would screw up an opponent's plans.
Combine this with the fact that your draws are entirely determined by luck, and you've got a game that feels passive - but not at all aggressive. Often, Solar Gardens feels like a game that happens to you rather than one that's directed by your decisions.
Things feel even more restrictive with a small player count. A five-player group will cycle through almost all of the game's tiles, giving everyone more options to consider for their garden. A two-player board game, however, has far fewer garden features to choose from, which takes that sense of control even further from players' hands.
Who is Solar Gardens for?
Solar Gardens sits firmly in the light board games camp, with no attempts to cater to players beyond its walls. Those who enjoy a more relaxed time at the tabletop will find this game quick to pick up and well-polished. It's a safe bet for anyone who needs a change from their usual tile drafting games.
However, I can't help wanting to tempt these players out from the safety of their garden. Solar Gardens is a perfect example of the fact that new board games don't always trump the classics. Carcassonne offers far more interesting decisions than Solar Gardens, with almost no step up in complexity. Harmonies is one of the most soothing board games I've played this year, and its roots in the medium-complexity genre aren't enough to put off new gamers.
Solar Gardens is a well-pruned garden, but its choice of flowers is far too safe. It's good, but there are so many great board games that offer a similar experience.
Have you tried Solar Gardens? Let us know your thoughts in the Wargamer Discord. Or, for more recommendations, here are the best couples' board games we've played.