A Rainbow of Fruit in Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game
Grow and harvest a delicious assortment of apples, pears, and plums with a quick play of Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game.
There was a time when I discounted every small game, assuming if it took less than 10 minutes to play, it could never measure up to the bigger games. I’ve learned! Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game is simple on the surface, yet provides an enormous amount of strategy and variety. And the rotten fruit tokens are simply adorable worms! What’s not to like?!
Game Overview
Game Name: Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game
Publication Year: 2018
Designer: Mark Tuck
Artist: Mark Tuck
Publisher: Side Room Games
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
As cards are drawn and matching fruit trees overlap, dice provide a way to count how bountiful the harvest will be. It’s easy to understand how to overlap identical fruit trees, yet in practice, the challenge is quite amazing! Don’t forget to watch out for the rotten fruit worms, too!
First Play
September 22, 2018
Complexity
1
Latest Play
August 3, 2024
Expansions
0
Setup Time
Almost None
Lifetime Plays
134
Play Time
5 Minutes
High Score
50
Game Area
12" x 12"
Low Score
18
An Itty Bitty Harvest
There isn’t anything complex about the rules. Indeed, this is a rare game where I never have to look at the rulebook. Even when I haven’t played for months, it’s all there!
High scores are a different matter. It takes some practice to figure out the best strategies, and even then it takes just a little bit of luck to pull off some amazing feats!
My first outing was… Not good. I’ll blame my use of the rotten fruit token smack dab in the middle of it all.
Rotten fruit indicates overlapping trees of different types. It’s often a last resort to try to score well. I did not. Ha!
Nearly All Fresh Fruit
That little worm was too tempting! I thought I might be able to pull ahead with some luck, but I might have been better off figuring out a better way to overlap the cards.
Note, too, that I’m still searching for an excellent score using the old rules. If a value 6 die has another card added, I simply don’t rotate it to the full basket for 10 points.
I’ll get there eventually! But I set a specific goal for myself and I would love to get there before I use the baskets.
At least this was a nice improvement over my first attempt. Still not quite where I needed to be, though…
What Makes It So Good?
At this point, I had over 100 logged plays. That’s not easy to do, especially with how many different games are out there! So I took a moment to think about the core.
You know… Like an apple core. Oh, terrible joke! Anyway, I narrowed it down to that sense of having a chance to score extremely well with every play. Anything might happen!
This also doesn’t require a lot of brainpower. Obviously, high scores reward careful planning! But there’s no losing.
I think it’s vital to have smaller games like this to enjoy and feel like solo board gaming can happen every day.
Better Harvest Skills
That’s an important concept for me: Daily solo games. Even if it turns out to be 10 minutes, I still get my time.
So although the 18 cards are easy to split for back-to-back plays, I felt like I wanted to keep on going! This time, I avoided the rotten fruit token and did rather nicely.
Having that perfect card show up at the right time can be so thrilling! There have been rare instances where I’ve even managed to overlap all 6 fruit trees. Awesome!
My score was still only decent, yet I was having a grand ol’ time tending to these trees! Just once more…
Session Overview
Play Number: 105-112
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Outcome: 28, 36, 38, and 40 (1 Win and 3 Losses)
Hurray! I managed to reach my victory threshold at last, but just barely. This definitely means that I need to play more often if I’m going to get close to my final goal before moving up to include the baskets. Such a great game! It’s rather embarrassing to admit how snobbish I used to be towards smaller, quick games… Yet it’s also good to look back and acknowledge that I’ve learned from that mistake. Every game can be an excellent one, just like this!
%
130 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
9
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
5
Quality
Components & Rules
10
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
9
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
5
+ Pros (Positives)
- All of the rules are easy to learn and memorize so that the rulebook is rarely referenced, except for scoring tiers.
- Each type of fruit is easy to tell apart and uses a no-nonsense approach to focus on the strategies.
- Despite utilizing only 9 cards per play and a few rules, gameplay is satisfyingly challenging and enjoyable.
- The play area may spread out a little bit, yet it remains very contained since the goal is to overlap the cards.
- Poor decisions and rotten fruit may lead to poor scores, but there is no tension nor danger of truly losing.
- It takes a matter of minutes to play and almost no time at all for setup and cleanup of a few components.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Gameplay can feel quite repetitive after a certain number of plays since the goal is simply to get a high score.
- The dice are just a tad on the small side and the yellow dice with white pips can be a little difficult to see.
- Card numbers mostly blend in, but can otherwise break the immersion and theme amidst all of the trees.
- A little bit of luck is sometimes needed to do well and the final card draw can be disappointing at times.
Victory Conditions
Score 40+ Points
- Overall Goal Progress 80%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 20 points.
Score at least 30 points.
Score at least 40 points.
Score at least 50 points.
Score at least 55 points.
Continue the Conversation
What do you like about Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game? Are there other smaller games that you enjoy? I’m definitely on the hunt for a very high score, and I don’t expect that to happen soon. But you never know! It’s clear that I need to play more often. There’s something so delightful about growing and harvesting fruit trees with a simple set of rules!
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