Review: Gretchen’s Garden

Introducción

Welcome to my little shop! I’m Gretchen and I love succulents. I’ll be delighted to help you create your very own collection of these wonderful survival artists. Here you will find incredible plants and extraordinary pots. Take good care of your plants so they can grow and thrive. With a little skill, your collection will flourish and, who knows, it might even end up being the most impressive of them all!

This is how we are introduced to Gretchen’s Garden, designed by Jay Bendixen (Dragon Overload, Cup of Tea?) and Ryan Boucher (18 Holes, Timber Town). First published in 2026 by Lookout Games in an English and German version. The illustrations are handled by Carrie Cantwell (Patchwork) and Nele Diel (Battle for Rokugan, Ghosts Galore).

It is published in Spain by Asmodee (the game is language-dependent regarding its cards, as well as the rulebook). It allows for games of 2 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 and an approximate duration of 45 minutes. The retail price is €29.99. For this review, a copy of the Spanish version by Asmodee was used, kindly provided by the publisher.

Importante: si ya conoces el juego y/o sólo te interesa mi opinión sobre el mismo, puedes pasar directamente al apartado de Opinión. Los apartados Contenido y Mecánica están destinados especialmente a aquellos que no conocen el juego y prefieren hacerse una idea general de cómo funciona.

Ir a la Opinión Personal

Contenido

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and base), measuring 23×16×5 cm (a medium rectangular box similar to Shamans), we find the following components:

• 134 Cards (59×87 mm):
  • 36 Type A Succulent Cards
  • 36 Type B Succulent Cards
  • 6 Special Plants
  • 24 Flowerpots
  • 8 Starting Flowerpots
  • 12 Weather Cards
  • 4 Watering Cans
  • 8 Summary Cards
• Central Board (cardboard)
• 116 Water/Leaf Tokens (cardboard)
• 26 4-Leaf Tokens (cardboard)
• 4 Player Boards (cardboard)
• First Player Marker (cardboard)
• Score Pad (paper)
• Rulebook

Mecánica

Gretchen’s Garden is a game where players assume the role of succulent collectors looking to create the most valuable display by acquiring and caring for a variety of plants and pots in Gretchen’s shop. At the beginning of each of the twelve rounds, turn order is determined. During the action phase, players alternate turns clockwise, being able to choose exactly one main option: purchase a new plant or pot from the shop using the leaves from their money plant as currency; cut another player’s plant to get a clipping if an empty pot is available; tend to their own collection by rearranging the positions of the succulents and distributing water from the watering can; or make a plant bloom if it matches the color of its pot. After this, the game moves to the weather phase, where all players simultaneously obtain free water according to the current weather card, distributing it into their pots and/or accumulating it in their watering can. Immediately following, the growth phase takes place, transforming water from filled pots into new leaves for the plants. Finally, during the cleanup phase, the shop is restocked by adding resources and discarding cards that have accumulated excess leaves or water, and the first player marker is rotated. After twelve rounds, the final scoring takes place, summing up points for the leaves accumulated on the succulents, the flowers achieved, the specific goals of each plant type, and the total number of pots in the collection, with the player with the highest score declared the winner.

Conceptos Básicos

Let’s start with the Succulent Cards, the main element of the game, which are divided into two sets (A and B) classified into six types of plants, each associated with a specific color (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, or red). Each card shows the name of the species, an illustration of the plant, and a scoring or development effect. Players must acquire them from the shop to place them inside the pots of their personal collection, where they will accumulate leaves to score points at the end of the game or activate abilities based on their requirements, though they can also be obtained by cutting leaves from opponents’ plants.

The Special Plants are a small group of six succulent cards that, unlike the standard ones, are identified by being gray (except for one considered a wild card) and do not belong to the usual classifications. These cards are shuffled randomly into the draw deck during setup depending on the number of participants. Their purpose is to bring variety to the player’s collection, offering unique growth or scoring conditions that break the rules of common succulents.

The Flowerpots are cards representing the containers where succulents must be planted and grown. They display a value at the top indicating their maximum size (the limit of leaves the plant inside can hold) and a series of droplet icons at the bottom marking their water capacity for growth, in addition to potentially having an associated color. Their role in the game is to house the succulent cards, physically limit their development based on their size, and store the water needed to activate the growth phase.

The Water/Leaf Tokens are cardboard markers printed on both sides, showing a blue water droplet on one side and a green leaf on the back. In the game, they function as a dual-state resource: when placed at the bottom of the pots or in the watering can, they act as water for irrigation; when flipped over and moved onto the succulent cards, they transform into leaves, which are victory points. Only in the case of the money plant will the leaves function as currency.

Each player will have a Player Board placed in their personal area at the start of the game. This component shows a fixed central illustration representing the money plant inside a hiking boot, accompanied by specific spaces on the left and right ends to attach and organize the starting pots of the collection, as well as a design that visually delineates the structure of the participant’s play area. Its function is to organize the player’s plant collection, serve as a base to count the leaf resources of their money plant (which are placed directly on the illustrated boot), and act as the central axis from which the garden will expand and structure sideways through the acquisition of new pots and succulents. The Watering Cans are individual equipment cards that each player receives at the start of the game and places in their play area. Physically, they show a space to store water and a reminder of their associated action. They serve as an unlimited reservoir for excess water so that players can save it between rounds, while also allowing them to execute a specific maintenance action to add more water from the supply and redistribute it among their pots.

The Weather Cards form a deck of twelve independent cards that dictate the atmospheric conditions of each round of the game. Each of these cards shows a specific number of water droplet icons; one is revealed for the current round while another is left visible as a weather forecast. It establishes the exact amount of free water that all players must receive and simultaneously distribute in their collections during the weather phase.

Finally, the Central Board represents Gretchen’s shop and is assembled in the center of the table from two interlocking pieces, featuring two different sides depending on the player count. It shows horizontal spaces to organize the cards for sale and the prices printed in leaves beneath each position. It serves as a common market where available plants and pots are displayed for purchase, as well as acting as the central hub to organize the flower reserve piles and the draw decks.

That is enough to get us started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place Gretchen’s shop board in the center of the play area, using the four-space side for two players or the six-space side for three or four players.
2. Leave the water and leaf tokens within reach of all participants.
3. Decide which set of succulents to use, ensuring only one type per color is used, and return the unselected cards to the game box.
4. Organize the supply by sorting the succulents by color into six decks placed above Gretchen’s shop, positioning the corresponding flower token beneath each one.
5. Prepare the plant deck by randomly selecting the indicated number of special plants based on the player count and removing the rest secretly.
6. Then, mix that selection with the required number of succulents of each color to form the final deck, which is placed to the left of the shop.
7. Shuffle the twenty-four pots face down to form the pot deck, which is placed to the right of the shop.
8. Reveal cards from the plant and pot decks to fill the available spaces in Gretchen’s shop, adding a leaf token onto each visible plant and a water token onto each visible pot.
9. Shuffle the twelve weather cards and place them face down on the bottom left of the shop, revealing the top card to place it to the right as the current weather.
10. Each player receives a personal board, two starting pots to place on the sides of the board, a watering can, and two reference cards to place underneath.
11. Randomly choose the starting player, who receives the corresponding marker.
12. The starting player and the participant sitting to their left place two leaves on their money plant, while the rest of the players add three leaves to theirs.

We are ready to begin!

Desarrollo de la Partida

A game of Gretchen’s Garden takes place over 12 rounds, concluding after the twelfth round. Each round consists of four phases.

Phase I: Actions

Starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, each player must choose and perform exactly one of the following four main available actions:

• Buy a plant or pot from Gretchen’s shop. The player chooses an available card in the shop and pays its cost by returning the indicated number of leaves from their money plant to the general supply. Empty spaces in the shop are not replenished immediately. If a plant is acquired, it must be placed in an empty pot within the player’s personal collection (the color of the pot does not matter); if no empty pots are available, they cannot buy plants. If a pot is acquired, it is added to the personal collection by sliding it between the two outermost pots, shifting the starting pot outward; if that starting pot contained a plant, it remains in place, effectively occupying the new pot. Any leaves brought by purchased plants or water brought by pots remain on them, discarding any excess leaves if they exceed the maximum size of the pot.
• Cut another player’s plant. The active player can obtain a clipping from an opponent’s plant as long as it has at least one leaf, does not have a flower, copies are still available in its supply pile, and the active player has an empty pot. When performing this action, one leaf token from the opponent’s plant is flipped to its water side and moved to the pot below that plant (or to their watering can if the pot is already full of water). After this, the active player takes an identical plant from the general supply and places it in an empty pot in their own collection.
  • Tend to your plants by watering and moving them. This action consists of two optional parts that can be executed in any order or even ignored:
  • Move. The player can rearrange up to two plants in their collection that do not have flowers. This can be done by shifting (moving one or two plants consecutively into empty pots) or by swapping (exchanging the positions of exactly two plants, without needing empty spaces). If the leaves of a moved plant exceed the maximum size of its new pot, the excess is returned to the supply.
• Water and grow. The player must add 2 water units from the supply to their personal watering can (which has no capacity limit). Subsequently, they can distribute as much water as they want from their watering can among the pots in their collection, respecting the water capacity limit of each. Immediately after watering, this player exclusively executes an additional growth phase for their collection, converting water droplets into leaves as long as the succulent has not exceeded the pot’s limit.
• Make a plant in your collection bloom. The player selects a plant in their collection that is in a pot matching its color (or a wild card pot) and whose corresponding flower is still available in the general supply. To make it bloom, all water in its pot is first returned to the supply, and the flower token is placed on the plant. Each type of plant can only bloom once per game. Bloomed plants are frozen: they cannot receive more water, they cannot be moved, and no opponent can cut them.

The phase ends once all players have resolved their turns.

Phase II: Weather

All players take an amount of water from the supply identical to the value shown on the current weather card of the round and distribute it freely among their pots and their personal watering can. Any excess water or water that does not fit in the pots accumulates in the watering can for future care actions. Water cannot be added to pots with bloomed plants.

Phase III: Growth

In each pot that contains an amount of water exactly equal to its maximum storage capacity, players flip all water tokens over to transform them into leaves and move them up to the corresponding plant. If the resulting total of leaves exceeds the maximum size allowed by the pot, the surplus is returned to the general supply. If a pot has no plant but is full of water, the water remains in it.

Phase IV: Cleanup

At the end of the round, the game is prepared for the next turn by executing the following steps in order:

1. Replenish Gretchen’s shop. 1 leaf marker is added to each remaining plant and 1 water marker to each remaining pot in the shop. After this, all plants that have reached 4 leaves and all pots that exceed their water capacity are removed from the shop, returning their markers to the supply. The remaining cards are shifted toward the cheaper central positions, and the empty spaces are filled by drawing cards from the respective decks.
2. Update the weather. The top card of the weather deck is placed over the current weather card to define the weather conditions for the next round.
3. Pass the first player marker. The first player marker is handed to the next player clockwise, starting a new round.

After this, a new round begins.

Fin de la Partida

The game ends immediately after the growth phase of round 12. At that moment, any remaining water is removed from the pots, and players proceed to calculate the total value of their collections. When evaluating a player’s score, the following will be taken into account:

• 1 point for each leaf present on the plants in the collection. Leaves on the money plant do not grant points.
• 7 points for each flower obtained in the collection.
• Additional points granted specifically by certain plants at the end of the game, evaluated sequentially by type.
• 2 points for each pot that is part of the collection.

The player with the highest score is declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the tied players share the victory.

Opinión Personal

Lookout Games is a publisher I always pay attention to because they have certain lines of games that I find very interesting. One of them focuses on medium-light titles. Within this branch, we find examples of very good designs like Forest Shuffle (here is its tocho-review), Isle of Skye (here is its tocho-review), or Bärenpark (here is its tocho-review), although it is also true that there are quite a few missteps, such as Tipperary (here is its tocho-review), Treos (here is its tocho-review), or Master Ocelot’s Cave (here is its tocho-review).

Still, I am always on the lookout for the next proposal from the label founded by Uwe Rosenberg, Hanno Girke, and Marcel-André Casasola Merkle—now in the hands of Asmodee—as I always hold onto the hope of finding a design that surprises me and urges me to bring it to the table repeatedly.

And that’s why we are here. Today we are going to analyze Gretchen’s Garden, a title in which we will become succulent enthusiasts, a group of plant species that share the “superpower” of being able to store water in much larger quantities than other plants. But first, it’s time to thank Asmodee for the copy that makes this text, which has just kicked off, possible.

In Gretchen’s Garden, we take on the role of collectors obsessed with succulents. They receive this name from the Latin *suculentus*, which means “juicy” or “full of juice” due to their incredible capacity to store water in their leaves, stems, or roots, allowing them to survive in arid climates and prolonged droughts. It has nothing to do with the other meaning of succulent that comes to many people’s minds (tasty or appetizing), since most of them have a very bitter taste, slimy textures, or chemical compounds that can cause digestive issues, so it’s better to leave them in their pots.

The game will unfold over twelve rounds, with players alternating turns executing one of four possible actions. The main one of those four allows you to expand your collection, which will obviously be composed of various types of succulents and, on the other hand, curious pots to plant them in. Both the pots and the succulent varieties will be found in a common supply with an increasing cost based on how long the corresponding item has been available in said supply. To cover the costs of a succulent card or a pot, you will have to use our money plant, a special succulent whose leaves act as bills.

Both succulents and pots will have an associated color out of seven possible options. Each of the seven types of succulents will display a specific scoring criterion that you must try to fulfill or maximize, while the pots, in addition to having a color, will feature a certain capacity to accumulate water in their soil and a growth capacity for the succulent planted in them, limiting the number of leaves it can grow.

While a new succulent can be planted in any free pot we have in our display, pots must be placed obligatorily at one of the ends of our collection, which will form a row. The twist is that they won’t be placed directly on the edge; instead, a gap will open up by first shifting the starting pots (carrying along any succulent they had planted). At the end of the game, players will obtain points for the number of pots they have in their row.

The second available action allows players to restructure their succulent collection and boost its growth. Thus, with this action, the player can repot up to two succulents, one by one, shifting a succulent from its current pot to a free one or, failing that, performing a swap between two pots. Additionally, the player can water the pots in their row using the droplets in their watering can, where two droplets will always be placed when resolving this action.

Why would we want to repot succulents? Well, to be able to resolve the third available action: making a succulent bloom. This provides an incredibly massive amount of points, generating a race dynamic to see which player is able to make each type of succulent bloom before their rivals, since in the entire game, only a single succulent of each type can bloom among all players. It is important to note that a bloomed succulent will remain “frozen,” losing its growth capacity (it won’t be able to accumulate more leaves).

The last available action allows players to visit their rivals and take a clipping from one of their succulents to plant it in their own pot. This is the game’s way of allowing all players to get a copy of each type of card, since they are limited in the deck and it is relatively easy for a player to be left with no option to plant a certain type of succulent. The cut is physically represented by removing a leaf token from the rival’s plant (although it will turn into a droplet token placed on the watering can). It is important to note that if a succulent has already bloomed, it can no longer be targeted for a clipping, which is an additional reason to try to make it bloom as soon as possible.

I mentioned that through the action that allows restructuring the garden, players can water their plants. This is not the only way pots can accumulate water, since once all players have resolved their action, the game moves to a weather phase where each player receives a certain amount of water droplets determined by one of the twelve weather cards (which serve as the game timer) and can distribute them among the free spaces in their pots, the most common being to place them in pots that have plants (including the money plant).

During the last phase of the round, this water will automatically turn into leaves in those pots with a succulent planted in them, provided they haven’t reached the maximum number of leaves the pot allows, have reached their maximum water capacity, and, of course, have not bloomed. A pot without a succulent will accumulate water in its soil, waiting for a succulent that can feed on it.

Well, with this, the premise of this game is more or less clear, so it’s time to talk about feelings and dynamics. Unfortunately, in Gretchen’s Garden, the first impression one experiences is that of a game that feels tremendously flat. It’s one of those games where we will act on autopilot in each round, making it a very predictable experience.

In each round, the optimal move is to get a succulent to accumulate leaves on it, as well as trying to maximize its scoring criteria. Obviously, this is not continuously possible, so it will have to be interspersed with acquiring pots due to space limitations. Here, the highest form of interaction emerges through an open draft. As options are removed from the market, the opponents’ room for maneuver is significantly reduced, potentially even leaving a player with no items available.

Beyond this, decision-making feels quite trivial. Although there are turns where it’s best to prioritize valuable blooming instead of buying, the overall development doesn’t offer a strategic challenge that stimulates advanced players. The algorithm will always be the same. First, can we make a succulent bloom? If yes, do we run the risk of another player doing it to a succulent of that same type? If the answer is also yes, you have to make the succulent bloom.

Otherwise, is there a succulent available in the market that nobody has? Buy it. If we have a free pot of the succulent’s color, we will plant it there. Otherwise, we will do it in the pot with the highest capacity. If not, we will see if we can get a clipping from our rivals and act the same way.

If we have no free spaces in our collection, we will have to get a pot. And only if we have succulents that can be repotted into more interesting pots (usually of the succulent’s color), then we will resolve the repotting and watering action.

And so on for twelve rounds. It’s true that weather management can be relatively interesting, as players must decide how many droplets to place in pots and how many to convert into money for the next round. You have to calculate future costs and anticipate the variability of weather cards, managing both abundance and scarcity of water in the available spaces.

The game scales well to two, three, or four players because the interaction is low, limited to the draft and the action of cutting leaves from the rival (which doesn’t really cause a major detriment to the targeted player). This is why it works best at two, where there is also only one copy of each type of succulent, so if one leaves the supply (there is a timer system for this), it will no longer be possible to grow succulents of that type. With more players, there are more copies in the deck, and it is harder for this to happen.

What it is clearly lacking in, obviously, is replayability. Added to the lack of interaction is a variability that, although it tries to be boosted by the special plants and the two sets of succulent criteria, decision-making is resolved automatically (as we’ve already mentioned). The expected outcome is that after two or three games, losing interest is normal, as these games already feel relatively boring. As you can see, it doesn’t pose a great challenge, lacks deep interaction, and has no great combinations or effects that invite keeping the game on the table over time. As an introductory title for beginners, it might work, but the current market offers millions of better choices.

A clear example is Faraway, a game suitable for anyone that is explained quickly, whose first play works as its own tutorial and pushes you to ask for a second one immediately. Here, however, the first game already feels quite clunky due to the continuous maintenance in each phase, dragging out too long for the weight of its decisions.

As far as production goes, we find a decent product. The cards have an acceptable weight, a smooth texture, and an adequate snappy response (sleeving is not necessary because players almost never hold cards in hand and they are barely shuffled). The cardboard elements feature suitable thickness and punch out easily. The rulebook is well-structured and leaves no room for doubt.

Regarding the illustrations, we are met with a naive and cozy aesthetic. Through simplified organic shapes, subtle textures, and a palette of warm, earthy colors that contrasts with vibrant greens, it conveys a homely and nostalgic atmosphere. Notable is the humorous touch of transforming recycled everyday objects—like an old hiking boot, vintage cans, or tea boxes—into unique pots. It is a clean and gentle design, conceived to offer a relaxing visual experience. Nothing spectacular, but fitting for this type of product.

And we are wrapping up. Gretchen’s Garden is a proposal that withers all too quickly due to a rigid development that forces players to act on autopilot. It is a design that, although it has interesting moments regarding timing management, the truth is that decision-making is not particularly appealing, leading to predictable turns via a resolution algorithm so obvious that it becomes trivial. What promised to be a dynamic race for the optimal blooming of our succulents turns, from the very first game, into an excessively flat experience that lacks the depth required to maintain interest in the game. I understand it is a title meant for people looking for a relaxed, unpretentious experience. It stays right on the edge of the cliff, but it doesn’t fall because it doesn’t feature glaring mistakes either. For all these reasons, I give it a…