Gamehelpgardensofio

Goal

Gardens of Io is an abstract strategy game for 2–5 players designed by Néstor Romeral Andrés. Plant flowers on a 9×9 grid to form connected groups of the same colour, score points, and advance your Martian around the 40-space perimeter track. The player furthest along the track wins.

Components

Component	Icon	Description
Flowers		60 flowers: 10 each of 6 colours (blue, yellow, orange, purple, red, green), kept in player reserves.
Martians		5 Martian gardeners (Ali, Bob, Bot, Marty, Robby) racing along the 40-space perimeter track (numbered 0–39).
Trees		3 permanent obstacles on the 9×9 grid that block sightlines.
Special Actions		5 special action slots on the board. Each can be used only once per game across all players.
Board	—	9×9 grid (81 circles) enclosed by a 40-space perimeter scoring track.

Setup

• Reserves: Flowers are drawn at random from the shared supply into public player reserves: 2 players get 27 flowers each; 3 players: 18; 4 players: 14; 5 players: 11. Unused flowers remain in the supply.
• Trees: 3 trees are placed on empty circles of the garden (by default randomly; with the option, placed alternately by players). Trees never divide the grid into separate disconnected areas.
• Martians: Each player's Martian starts off-board behind space 0 and enters space 0 on their first turn.

Your turn

On your turn, execute the following steps:

1. Special action (optional)

Before planting, you may use one available special action slot (maximum 1 per turn, up to 1 per game per player, or 2 in a 2-player game; once a slot is used by anyone, it is unavailable for the rest of the game):

• Swap Tree & Flower: swap any tree on the board with any planted flower.
• Swap Flowers: swap any two planted flowers on the board.
• Move Flower: move any planted flower to an empty circle.
• Move Tree: move any tree to an empty circle.
• Advance 5: instantly advance your Martian 5 spaces forward on the track.

Your player token marks the used special action slot on the board.

2. Planting

• Place one flower from your reserve onto an empty circle that lies in a direct straight or diagonal line inward from your Martian's track position (corner spaces only aim diagonally into the garden).
• Trees block lines of sight; flowers do not.
• If no empty circle is reachable along your Martian's sightlines, you cannot plant and must instead advance your Martian 1 space.

3. Scoring and moving

• Count the total number of connected flowers of the same colour touching the newly planted flower horizontally or vertically (orthogonal adjacency; diagonals do not connect). The newly planted flower counts.
• Advance your Martian forward along the track by that many spaces.
• Spaces occupied by other Martians are skipped over without counting. You cannot end your move on an occupied space.

4. Extra turns

• If you plant the last remaining flower of a colour in play (zero of that colour left across all player reserves), you immediately take another complete turn!

End of the game and scoring

The game ends immediately when:

• Any player exhausts all flowers from their reserve.
• The leading Martian is a full lap (40 spaces) ahead of the trailing Martian.

The player furthest along the track wins (completed laps count: 40 points per lap). Ties share victory (no tie-breaker).

Variants (table options)

• Tree placement (Option 102):
  • Random (default): the 3 trees are placed on random circles before the game starts.
  • Players place them (Standard): players take turns placing the 3 trees on empty circles.
• Lap flower bonus (Option 100):
  • Disabled (Standard) (default): standard rules.
  • Enabled: when your Martian crosses the start line (between space 39 and 0), choose one flower from the board (whose colour is not yet exhausted) and add it to your reserve.
• Game mode (Option 101):
  • Competitive (Standard) (default): the Martian furthest along the track wins.
  • Cooperative: all players collaborate. The group score is the score of the lowest scoring Martian.

Controls on BGA

• Tree setup: click an empty circle on the board, then press Confirm (or Undo).
• Planting: click a flower in your reserve, then click a highlighted reachable circle on the board (or click the circle first, then the flower). Press Confirm to finalize, or Undo to cancel staging.
• No reachable circle: press Move 1 space.
• Special actions: click an available special action slot, click the required circle(s) on the board (or confirm the advance), and press Confirm (or Undo). If you staged a special action, you can press Undo special action before planting.
• Lap bonus: when crossing the start line (if enabled), click an eligible flower on the board and press Confirm.
• Tooltips: hover over a player's Martian score in the player panel to view total score and laps, reserve counts for colour names, and special action tokens.
• Accessibility: every flower piece permanently features a distinctive colour-blind pattern and centre symbol.