One of my earliest memories of modern board gaming was someone at work teaching me Carcassonne. It blew my tiny little mind. I had always played board games growing up and had played many types of games. I did not realise though, just how much things had moved on in the hobby.
Fast forward many years, I am now writing, designing and doing many things within the hobby when a board game called Solar Gardens appears on my doorstep. It’s a quaint little tile-layer, about converting the top of skyscrapers to a more energy-efficient, sustainable space. When I described it to my other half, who loves Carcassonne, I described it as “each player making their own map of green energy production, on top of a skyscraper, Carcassonne-style”. Which she agreed with after playing, she loves these types of games.
One of my earliest memories of modern board gaming was someone at work teaching me Carcassonne. It blew my tiny little mind. I had always played board games growing up and had played many types of games. I did not realise though, just how much things had moved on in the hobby.
Fast forward many years, I am now writing, designing and doing many things within the hobby when a board game called Solar Gardens appears on my doorstep. It’s a quaint little tile-layer, about converting the top of skyscrapers to a more energy-efficient, sustainable space. When I described it to my other half, who loves Carcassonne, I described it as “each player making their own map of green energy production, on top of a skyscraper, Carcassonne-style”. Which she agreed with after playing, she loves these types of games.
The Setup
The Solar Gardens setup is a breeze, and I love that. Chuck everyone a double-layered board, a score reference and mix up all the tiles in the centre of your play-space. When a game’s setup outweighs the fun or gameplay, it always rubs me up the wrong way; that is certainly not the case here.
You are up and running in minutes and with games of this weight, that’s a perfect setup time to gameplay ratio.
Push Your Luck and Drafting, in a Tile-Laying Game?
The thing that makes Solar Gardens stand out in a heavily populated genre is the tile-selection mechanic. You don’t just get a tile, you don’t even pick from a small selection. The whole game has a small slice of push your luck and forcing some players to take tiles they may not want. Which I really enjoyed.
The starting player grabs random tiles from the pile in the centre face down in a stack, equaling the number of players plus one. Then they flip the top one and decide whether they want to place it or not. If the tile is not to your taste, it gets passed left and the next player has the same choice. When it gets to the last player and they do not want it either, the tile gets discarded. The issue with this is that only one tile can be discarded. So the later you are in the turn order, the more likely you will be forced to take a certain tile.
This mechanic pleased me greatly. It not only added extra weight to each of my choices but also made me much more aware of what my competitors were going for. Each decision about whether I wanted a tile or not was not only to benefit my design, but also had me side-eyeing what would not benefit my neighbours too much. It was a welcome little twist for sure.
Points and Features
So, what are you actually doing to score points with your skyscraper rooftop redesign? Well, as you draft tiles, you will be trying to score certain objectives and creating a rooftop space that scores more than the other players.
Your board is split into columns and rows. The columns score for solar panels and the rows score for wind turbines. Having four in each column or row will score, with an escalating number of points for each row or column. Both columns and rows start at one point and increase to four, so if you are collecting either, there are better and worse places to place your turbines and panels.
As with most tile-laying games, there are also paths or walkways to lay. Each player will score for their longest path, but also the player or players with the longest will get a juicy three-point bonus. I found that while I had one eye on my pathways, it was more often than not, the other stuff on the tile that swung whether I wanted it or not.
There are also animal enclosures to place, there are five to hunt down and they will score you five points if you have all five in your garden. Along with that, they also score in pairs with adjacent identical enclosures scoring three points. We found in our game that we were all searching for the last enclosure and when it came out, there were simultaneous groans and woops around the table.
Along with all those shenanigans, there is also a feature that scores depending on its size and things within it. It’s probably the trickiest thing to score in the game, even though it’s relatively simple. Some tiles have flower bed sections on them. These flower beds sometimes have water filters on them too. You will score these flower beds for their size, one point per tile if it contains one water filter and two points per tile if they have two or more water filters. The only downside is that if they are not completely enclosed, they only score half points, so don’t do what I did and try to create a massive flower garden that you never finish.
The only other thing you have to be wary of is sculptures. These just offer one point each and are in place on various tiles in various amounts. I saw them as a nice little added bonus to other things you were going for and now and again swung whether the tile was valuable enough for me to draft.
All in all, I found the mixture of various scoring conditions, push your luck and drafting to make Solar Gardens feel just different enough from other tile-layers I have played. There were just enough variables and objectives to juggle, to keep your decisions weighty, while not being overwhelming. The added bonus of passing tiles to your neighbours really adds something to the gameplay. Especially when you stuff one of your friends by giving them a tile that offers them nothing, lovely!
Components
As far as tile-laying games go, I found the component quality and design for Solar Gardens to be top-notch. The UI was well designed, the tiles were well illustrated and everything just worked as it should. The dual-layer boards were a nice touch and the player aids informed players of everything they needed.
The tiles were thick and sturdy, as were the player boards. Everything in this box does what it needs to do and is of a quality to last. I have no issues at all with either the presentation or the standard of components for this game.
Final Thoughts
If you are not into tile-laying and designing a little space of your own, I cannot see Solar Gardens changing your mind. However, if the push your luck and drafting mechanism sounds like it’s for you, I would definitely give it a try.
On the other side of that, if tile-laying is your thing, I think Solar Gardens does just enough to make it feel slightly different from its competitors. My other half loves tile-layers and she had great fun with it. Even when getting stuck with a tile that does not fit her garden at all, she still enjoyed the process.
While the theme and mechanics may not be for everyone, Solar Gardens is well-designed, well-made made and worth your time and effort. Right, I am off to lay some windfarms, lay some pathways and make sure Steve does not get that last animal enclosure he wants. See you next time!
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
75%
