A Day Between the Raindrops with Petrichor
Fill clouds with gentle raindrops to plan how to grow the crops below and navigate various weather in Petrichor.
My love of nature-related games knows no bounds at this time! I was thrilled when the Petrichor: Collector’s Edition arrived with absolutely everything for this solo game about clouds and rain. Never having played before, maybe it was a lot to assume it would be excellent… Yet nothing told me otherwise. Strategic clouds and rain storms? Yes, please!
Game Overview
Game Name: Petrichor: Collector’s Edition
Publication Year: 2018
Designer: David Chircop
Artists: Daniela Attard and Sami Laakso
Publishers: APE Games and Mighty Boards
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
The base game features deep strategies tied to navigating the clouds and crops. Deciding which weather actions to take and how to utilize raindrops takes careful thought, yet the overall feeling is relaxed. This new edition also includes fancy components and all of the expansions!
First Play
April 9, 2022
Complexity
4
Latest Play
November 16, 2025
Expansions
6
Setup Time
10 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
3
Play Time
1 Hour & 15 Minutes
High Score
78
Game Area
34" x 18"
Low Score
53
Neatly Organized
When I decided to pick up everything, I definitely went for everything! This special storage box comes with a nice organization system, plus some extra components.
No worries: A lot of this content is for expansions! The base game is fairly compact in terms of its tiles and cards.
Such lovely artwork. It actually rained a little bit while I was carefully sorting through everything. Thematic!
There are a couple of storage aspects that I didn’t love, yet this worked well for my purposes. Plus, I don’t need to hang onto a lot of extra boxes… Though they are pretty!
A Day in the Clouds
In a very thematic sense, the dominant color across most of the components is white. And it certainly feels rather fluffy in most cases… Until the raindrops are ready to fall!
Overall, it seemed straightforward to use a weather card to take a specific action, then use it within a voting scheme.
Effectively, I could take my own smaller weather effects in tiny areas. At the end of each round, the top 2 types of weather would have larger effects on many of the crops.
It took up a much more compact space than I expected! And I had a lot of choices to think of from the start.
Iconography and Understanding Concepts
For the most part, every component is language independent with icons and artwork to explain meanings. Player cards succeed in this effort: I still needed to use the reference cards as reminders, yet I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen at a glance. This is always an important concept when playing a game with limited text.
For instance, if the icons and artwork were all about cloud formations, would that get across the same points? What would it look like for a cloud to form, collect raindrops, move, or rain? Those would likely be far too similar and confusing. I appreciate the very different icons and artwork used to depict the environment instead of just the sky!
At the same time, I was completely lost when it came to the solo opponent’s cards. I could almost decipher some of them, but I needed to keep a huge rulebook nearby to fully read the description for every drawn card… Save for the one to reshuffle the cards. Ha! Not the end of the world, yet it was a bit of a problem point with the solo mode for me.
Overhead & Overcast
The standard base game includes cardboard clouds, but not in this case! These deluxe plastic versions hovered over the crops in a rather nicely thematic sense.
I will note that I knocked them over a little too much and found that they got in the way of seeing some text, but these were all minor and didn’t create major issues.
Perhaps I expected more, yet the 2×3 set of crops felt quite tiny. It definitely led to a lot of tight strategies, though.
As expected, there was a lot of flipping around in the rulebook as I tried to get my head out of the clouds. Ha!
Thunderclouds Ahead
I had a lot of fun turning regular clouds into their more dangerous, but also more useful, counterparts. Even the ability to combine clouds was an intriguing mechanic.
Although I struggled with the rules at first and felt like I was losing by far too much, I pulled ahead in the end!
There are multiple ways to adjust the difficulty, plus plenty of expansions, so I didn’t feel like I came close to mastering gameplay. My raindrops weren’t the best!
It was a pleasant little day of rain and growth. And if nothing else… Blame it on the RAIN! It was fallin’, fallin’!
Session Overview
Play Number: 1 and 2
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Standard Difficulty Level
Outcome: 53-40 and 57-38 (2 Wins)
In both plays, I tricked the solo opponent on the crops that awarded more victory points for coming in second place. Some of the increased difficulty options make it a little more intelligent with its choices, which I’m looking forward to. I had a nice time, but felt like the decisions were a tad heavier for what I would expect from this theme and play time. Still, it was a very enjoyable game!
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
8
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
8
Originality
Design & Theme
6
Quality
Components & Rules
5
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
4
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
7
+ Pros (Positives)
- A random setup provides a variable selection of crops, which can change up the cloud-based strategies a lot.
- The theme is very relaxing and calming as clouds float through the air and rain down to bring crops to life.
- Optional expansions or ways to increase the difficulty level help provide a customized sort of experience.
- Play time goes by relatively quickly for how deep some of the decisions are, particularly in the later rounds.
- Choosing both weather actions and the larger weather effects through voting provides an intertwined strategy.
- Each piece of art is beautiful and fits in with the calm theme with hints of almost airy or whispy aspects.
– Cons (Negatives)
- The rulebook is a bit lengthy and takes some time to understand how the concepts work during play.
- Although the upgraded clouds look very nice, they can obscure some information and fall over rather easily.
- Some of the iconography, especially related to the solo mode, is not very clear and requires constant referencing.
- Gameplay is mostly straightforward, yet the level of complexity for a fairly short game can feel like a lot at times.
Victory Conditions
Score the Most Points
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 50 points.
Score at least 55 points.
Score at least 75 points.
Continue the Conversation
What are your thoughts about the Petrichor: Collector’s Edition? Have you found that additional difficulty levels or the expansions improve the solo experience? I certainly hope to try a lot more of the content out in the future! Such a nice way to spend some time… Rolling along as clouds, producing raindrops and watering crops. I do love my nature games!
Been a little while since I played last, but I hadn’t quite nailed down the solo iconography either. Overall, I really like this game and the collector’s edition looks great.
Good to know I’m not alone! It’s a solid game that I can see getting even better with more content and some of the added difficulty options. I’ll definitely bring it back to my table at some point!