Two Rex Plays #12 - Floriferous
In this edition of Two Rex Plays we’re discussing Floriferous, a flip & collect card game designed by Eduardo Baraf and Steve Finn with artwork by Clémentine Campardou. Pick from a selection of immaculately illustrated flowers and gardening paraphernalia as you look to score points by satisfying a variety of collection tasks.
Here are the design features we liked:
Great pacing - Including the time it took one of us to teach the other, our first run-time was around half an hour which felt perfect for the weight of this game. This timing is quite consistent across subsequent games and knowing this makes it much easier to return for another go. This matching of weight and length is tricky to get right, and I imagine it would have been tempting to over-design the experience by adding more mechanisms and increasing the decision space. I’m glad the designers steered away from this path and kept faith with a quicker run-time.
Row mechanic - The game includes an innovative mechanic for deciding turn order once a round has begun (well, it was new to us, but further research suggests that a similar mechanic has also been used in Kingdomino). As you move through a round, the first player to select from the next column depends on which row you selected in the previous one. If you were happy to go higher up the column (which is typically more risky), you get to go earlier in the next selection.
Artwork - A common theme in games we’ve played over recent weeks, Floriferous comes with fantastic card art by Clémentine Campardou. For me, the style is reminiscent of a scientific journal rather than a traditional still life painting, and that resonated well with the strategic nature of the experience.
Giftable - Tied to many of the points above, in particular artwork, pacing and weight, this would make a perfect gift for someone who you think might want to dabble with a modern board game. I can see this being played over a cup of tea with my mum and dad, and there aren’t too many games we’ve played where I think this would be the case!
Soft Competition – There’s a traditional point-based mechanism that decides the winner of the game, but many of the design features help to soften the competitive angle. Many of your objectives will be unique to you as a player, and whilst you are competing for the same set of cards each turn, you’re almost always choosing what maximises your scoring potential rather than what minimises the scoring opportunities for your opponent.
Pacing is something we’re particularly interested in at the moment with our design, and we’re also aiming for something around the half an hour mark. Our idea is slightly unusual in that it has two distinct phases - a build section then a battle phase. The build phase is relatively locked down and consistently takes 15 minutes, which is exactly what we’re aiming for. But we’re yet to settle on the battle mechanics and have been trying out a variety of ideas. What seem like small changes can dramatically increase or decrease the time taken - a strategically satisfying version took well over half an hour which we feel is too long for what we’re looking to provide.
Interested in Floriferous? Find out more here:
Kickstarter Page
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ebaraf/floriferous
Board Game Geek Page