What Planted Is
Planted: A Game of Nature and Nurture is a card drafting and engine-building game for two to five players, designed by Phil Walker-Harding and published by Buffalo Games. You collect resources, tools and decorations to feed and grow a collection of plants, and the player with the most points after four rounds wins. Reviewers describe it as light and quick, often around 20 to 45 minutes depending on the source.
Setup
- Place the nursery board in the middle of the table.
- Give each player a player board and place it in front of them.
- Separate the Resource cards from the Item cards, shuffle each, and place them face down on the nursery board.
- Find the six Plant cards marked Beginner, shuffle them, and deal one to each player, face up above their board. Return the unused Beginner cards to the box.
- Shuffle the remaining Plant cards into a draw pile, and reveal four face up beside it to form the nursery row.
- Place the Light, Water, Plant Food, Green Thumb and Growth tokens in supply piles.
How the Game Is Structured
Planted has four rounds of eight turns each. At the start of a round, every player draws six Resource cards and two Item cards to form a secret hand of eight.
On each turn, everyone chooses one card at the same time and places it face down. Then the remaining hands are passed: to the left in rounds one and three, and to the right in rounds two and four. All players reveal and resolve their card together.
What You Can Do With a Card
- Resource cards: take that many matching tokens (Light, Water or Plant Food) from the supply, as shown by the icons.
- Tool cards (gray): give a lasting ability for the rest of the game. For example, a tool may give an extra token when you play a two-icon card of a certain resource, or a Green Thumb token when you play a one-icon card.
- Decoration cards (purple): do nothing during the game but score points at the end.
- Buy a plant: instead of using the card, discard it and say “nursery” to take one of the face-up Plant cards. You can own up to six plants.
If several players buy a plant on the same turn, the lowest number on the played cards chooses first. Refill the nursery row after each pick.
Feeding Your Plants
When the eight turns are over, you feed your plants. Each Plant card shows the resources it needs. To feed it, spend exactly those tokens, then place a Growth token on its lowest remaining growth space. Each growth space has a point value. A plant can be fed once per round, and you can feed several plants if you have the resources. Two Green Thumb tokens can stand in for one needed resource.
Propagation Jars
Leftover resources are not wasted. For each two unused resource tokens, you may take a Growth token and place it on a propagation jar on your player board. Each jar token is worth one point at the end of the game.
End of a Round
Discard any remaining tokens, put played cards into the proper discard piles (Tools and Decorations stay with the player), and prepare the next round. In larger games, the Resource deck is reshuffled partway through, as set out in the rulebook.
Decoration Scoring
Decorations are scored at the end. Examples from the rules include:
- Hanging, shelf and floor decorations each score for plants showing the matching icon.
- Display Shelves score for sets with one of each placement type.
- The Indoor Greenhouse scores for fully grown plants.
- The Workbench scores for Tool cards you collected.
End of the Game and Winning
After round four, add points from Growth tokens on your plants, tokens on your propagation jars, and Decoration cards. The highest total wins. A commonly given tiebreaker is the number of Growth tokens placed on plants, but check your own rulebook.
Is Planted a Good Game?
Reviewers describe it as simple, quick and attractive, with enough decisions to stay interesting, and they note it is best taken as a light game. If you like simultaneous drafting, it is a pleasant fit.
Related Reading
For another nature-themed game, see our Parks rules overview. If you prefer short card games, try our Faraway rules guide.