Gamehelpgardensofuranus

Overview

Gardens of Uranus is a quick abstract game for 2–5 players. Friendly Martian gardeners plant flowers on a grid of spots while secretly working toward gardening missions. On your turn you either slide your gardener across the garden and plant a flower, or score one of your mission cards.

Goal

Finish with the most points. You earn points by scoring mission cards, and lose points for flowers you never planted.

Setup

• Choose a garden board: Hexagonal (61 spots, 1 tree, 4 mission decks), Trapezoid (63 spots, 2 trees, 2 decks) or Rhombus (64 spots, 3 trees, 3 decks). The trees are placed on random spots that are not on the outer edge.
• Each player receives flowers in 5 colors (blue, red, yellow, green, purple). The amount depends on the number of players: 2 players 30 flowers, 3 players 20, 4 players 15, 5 players 12. Every player's flower reserve is public and shown in the player panel together with the penalty it would cost right now.
• Draft your missions: everyone starts with 5 secret mission cards. Keep 1 and pass the other 4 to your neighbor, then keep 1 of the 4 you receive and pass the rest, and so on. The 5th card is the single one that is passed to you, so you keep it automatically and end up with 5 cards.
• The remaining mission cards are split into decks next to the board (4, 2 or 3 depending on the board): 1 face-down deck and the others face-up (the top card is visible). The number on each deck is how many cards are left in it.
• In turn order each player places their gardener on any empty spot. Depending on the table option Martian powers you either choose your Martian or are dealt a random one (the default is no powers, where Martians only differ in looks).

Your turn

On your turn you must do one of the following:

1. Move your gardener in a straight line along any of the 6 directions, as many steps as you want, without turning. Trees block your movement. Other gardeners do not block you, but you cannot end your move on a tree or on another gardener. Spots you can reach are highlighted.

• If you stop on an empty spot, you must plant a flower there: choose the color from your reserve.
• If you stop on a spot that already has a flower, nothing is planted.

2. Score a mission card. Instead of moving, choose one of your mission cards. The number next to each card shows what it would score right now. Scoring reveals the card to everyone and discards it for good. Then draw a replacement from any non-empty deck on the board. You may score a card for 0 points to get rid of it.

Mission cards

• Biggest group: 1 point for every flower in the largest connected group of a color.
• Group count: 1 point for every separate group of a color (isolated flowers count).
• Straight line: 2 points for every flower of a color in the longest straight line along connections, except the first.
• Triangle: if the 3 corners of a triangle contain flowers of a color, 1 point for every spot on its sides. Only the biggest triangle scores, and the sides must be straight connections.
• Edge or tree: 1 point for every flower of a color on the edge of the garden or next to a tree.
• Adjacent pairs: 1 point for every connection between two adjacent flowers of the two colors on the card.
• Hexagon: if 6 flowers of the same color are placed on the corners of a regular hexagon (straight sides) at any moment, the owner of this card wins the game instantly.

Martian powers (optional)

If the table option Martian powers enables them, each Martian can use its special power once per game. Players in the table panel can see who has already used theirs.

• Ali, flower swap: swap two flowers; both flowers and Ali must lie on the same straight line.
• Bot, nuke a tree: remove one tree from the board.
• Marty, teleport: move to any spot that has no tree and no other Martian.
• Robby, swap Martians: swap places with any other Martian.
• Bob, replace flower: when moving, land on a spot that already has a flower and plant one of your flowers there; the old flower leaves the game.

Ali, Bot, Marty and Robby use their power before their normal action: use the power button in the action bar, then still move or score a card as usual. Bob's power is part of his move.

End of the game

The game ends as soon as one of these happens:

• At the start of a player's turn, that player has no flowers left.
• Every player moves their gardener in succession without anyone planting a flower.
• A player draws the last card from the board.
• A player completes the Hexagon mission.

Then every player scores the mission cards still in their hand and loses points for unused flowers: 1 flower -1, 2 flowers -3, 3 flowers -6, 4 flowers -10, 5 flowers -15, 6 flowers -21, 7 flowers -28, 8 flowers -36, 9 flowers -45, 10 flowers -55, 11 flowers -66, 12 flowers -78. The player with the most points wins. A scoring table shows where every player's points came from.

Credits

Game design: Néstor Romeral Andrés. Published by nestorgames.