Welcome to the Community Hedge Fund! Our motto is “grow, grow, grow!” But with high growth, there is often high risk – you never know when your most valuable stalks are going to crash! Garden wisely and collect the most valuable flowers you can!

What Is It?

Stock Holding / Commodity Speculation – Players start with a certain number of flowers (stocks) according to the player count. They’ll never have more of less than that number, but they can swap for other flowers in the stalk exchange market to try and get more of the flowers they think will be the most valuable.

Tile (Token) Placement – Players will be placing flowers into the garden throughout the game. They’ll harvest groups of the same flowers when the group is completely surrounded, which will increase their value and move players toward the end of the game as they fill in the board with the flower tokens.

Who Is It For?

  • 2 to 5 Players – Scales well at any count
  • Ages 10 & Up / Family-Weight Gamers – Streamlined rules, not many different actions, so turns are quick
  • Fans of light stock games, and trying to guess what will be the most valuable to capitalize on it
  • Players who like hidden victory points not revealed until game end

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Love the paper craft artwork, so unique and pretty
  • Components – Great, chunky flower tokens. The big shed screens are a nice touch
  • Rules – Well-written and clear
  • Quick and smooth turns
  • I think the “bust” of the highest value flower right at the end of the game works well, keeps everyone on their toes
  • I like that you don’t have to worry about buying and selling “stocks” and only have to swap sometimes
  • Accessible especially for players newer to stock market games
  • Cute theme

CONS

  • Components – The greenhouse bag is too small for the tokens, especially during setup
  • End game can come on fast, and it felt like the player who could cause the end had a lot of control
  • Limited choices on your turn, so many turns weren’t terribly exciting

Final Thoughts

I thought this was cute and approachable! It felt unique from other stock market games I have played, and I definitely liked not having to manage money and consistently buying and selling stocks based on current values – the swapping mechanism worked well for me.

I just ultimately felt like the gameplay itself, though smooth, wasn’t super interesting; it just got a little bit repetitive. I also thought the player who could position themselves to go last had a lot of control, because they usually got to decide what flower busted.

Overall, I think it’s a good introduction to this style of game for younger or newer players!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Christopher Ryan Chan
Artist – Diana Beltrán Herrera
Publisher – The Op Games
MSRP – $49.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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