Gamehelpseedkeepers

Overview

You are a gardener with one season to turn a bare plot around a small pond into a garden in full bloom. Seeds come from nurseries everyone shares, and every gardener at the table wants the good ones, so the seeds you take are seeds your neighbors don't get.

Plants grow when you water them and when their neighbors bloom: a Clover nudges the plants beside it, a Sunflower lifts its whole row, a Mushroom feeds on every bloom next to it. Plant them so one bloom sets off the next, and a single watering can make a whole row burst into flower. Race the other gardeners for the season goals, and with the Garden Friends option, invite bees, ladybugs, butterflies and other friends to settle in your garden.

1 to 10 players: you pick seeds in turn, then everyone plants at the same time. Solo, you play against the Gardener.

Objective

Score the most points by the end of the game: points for every bloomed plant, stars for big chains, and season goals. Solo, beat the Gardener's score tiers.

Your garden

• A 6x6 grid. The four plots in the middle are a pond, and two corner plots are rocks. Neither can be planted, which leaves 30 plots.
• Rows and columns are numbered 1 to 6.
• "Side by side" means sharing an edge, never diagonal.

A round

1. Restock

Every nursery is topped up to 4 seed cards. There is one nursery per player (2 in solo). Each card shows one plant and a number from 1 to 6.

2. Pick, in turn order

• Take every card of one plant from one nursery. The rest of that nursery goes to the compost.
• Or take every card of one plant from the compost.
• The first player to take from the compost in a round loses 1 point and picks first next round. Otherwise the first player passes to the left.
• A pick is final once you confirm it.

3. Tend, everyone at once

• Plant each seed you took in an empty plot. A seed you can't or won't plant is discarded for -2 points.
• Water one row or column whose number matches one of the seeds you took. Every unbloomed plant in that line grows by 1.
• Until you press a Water button, Replant clears your plantings so you can place them again.

4. End of the round

• Season goals are checked (see below).
• The compost keeps only its newest 8 cards. Older ones rot away to the discard pile.

Plants

A plant blooms when all its pips are full. A bloomed plant scores its points at the end and doesn't grow any more.

Plant	Pips	Points	Effect
Clover	1	1	When planted: +1 growth to each side-by-side neighbor
Fern	2	2	When planted: starts with 1 growth if side by side with the pond or a Sunflower
Sunflower	2	4	When it blooms: +1 growth to every other plant in its row
Lavender	2	2	When it blooms: +1 growth to all 8 surrounding plants (diagonals too)
Mushroom	3	5	+1 growth whenever a side-by-side neighbor blooms
Rose	3	7	Can't be grown by Clover

Chains and stars

Some blooms make other plants grow, and those can bloom too: a chain.

Count every plant that bloomed on your turn, from your plantings and your watering together. 3 blooms earn 1 star, plus 1 more for each bloom beyond 3. Each star is worth 4 points.

Big turns win games. A dashed orange ring marks a plant one pip from blooming, and the orange number beside a row or column counts those plants. Watering a line with 3 or more of them blooms them all at once, so take a seed with that line's number. Each Water button says what it will do before you press it.

Season goals

Two goals are drawn each game and apply to everyone. They are races: everyone who meets a goal in the first round it is met scores 10, and anyone meeting it later scores 5. In solo, a goal scores 10 if you meet it by round 7 and 5 after that.

Goal	Condition
Starry	Earn 3 stars
Bouquet	A 2x2 square of 4 different bloomed plants
Rose garden	3 bloomed Roses
Sunny row	2 bloomed Sunflowers in the same row
Meadow	6 plants of one kind connected side by side
Rainbow line	5 different plants in one row or column

End of the game and scoring

The game ends after round 12, or sooner, after the round in which any garden is full. Everyone finishes that round. Then score:

• the points of every bloomed plant (unbloomed plants score nothing);
• 4 points per star;
• the goal points won during the game;
• minus penalties (discards and compost).

Ties go to the player with the most plants bloomed.

Solo

Two nurseries. Each round you pick first, then the Gardener takes the biggest haul left in the nurseries, and the rest of that nursery goes to the compost. The Gardener doesn't score.

Score tiers: bronze 65 (a win), silver 80, gold 105, platinum 135, diamond 155.

Garden Friends (table option)

Friends you buy with nectar or attract to your garden.

• Nectar: every flower that blooms (Clover, Sunflower, Lavender, Rose) earns 1 nectar. Ferns and Mushrooms don't flower.
• Buy: right after your pick, you may buy one friend from the friends meadow for its nectar cost, if you have a bloomed plant without a friend for it.
• Attract: at the end of every round but the last, a meadow friend comes free to a garden that meets its habitat and has no friend of that kind yet. Ties go to the most nectar, then turn order. In solo, the oldest friend left then flies away.
• Landing: a new friend lands at the start of your next tend: set it on a bloomed plant without a friend.

Friend	Cost	Comes free to	Effect
Bee	3	3 bloomed Lavenders	When you water, the plants side by side with it grow too
Ladybug	2	2 bloomed Roses side by side	End: +2 for each bloomed Rose side by side with it
Earthworm	3	3 bloomed Ferns next to the pond	Unbloomed plants side by side with it need 1 fewer pip
Firefly	3	A turn with 6 or more blooms	Stars you earn after it lands are worth 5 points each
Butterfly	4	4 different bloomed plants in one row or column	End: +1 for each kind of plant bloomed in your garden
Dragonfly	4	6 bloomed plants next to the pond	Once a game, water a second row or column

Extra scoring: Ladybug and Butterfly points; the friends hotel, 1, 3 or 5 points for 1, 2, or 3 or more different kinds of friend; and 1 point per 3 nectar left.

Solo tiers with Garden Friends: bronze 70 (a win), silver 85, gold 115, platinum 150, diamond 170.

In the game

The green ? button in the bottom-left corner opens How to play, Plants and Friends at any time.