‘Bloomin’ Lovely’: Orchard (Solitaire) by Mark Tuck Review

After realising that my favourite game in my collection, Circle the Wagons, is also my smallest, when I browse Kickstarter (where I also purchased Circle the Wagons) I’ve been keeping my eye out for similar miniature but deceptively intricate experiences. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon two games in the same scrolling session that I knew I had to back. Coincidentally, their small size also means the creators released the Print-and-Play – or ‘PnP’ – for each, which I hurriedly assembled before I go on holiday tomorrow; these sorts of games are perfect to stuff in a backpack or even a pocket.

One of those games was Orchard. The first solitaire game I’ve reviewed on this site, because I’m not really a fan of them! Sprawlopolis (through the KS campaign of which I acquired Circle the Wagons as an add-on that I ironically preferred a thousand-fold) is just appalling, not even worth considering for this site. It’s impossible by yourself, and as a cooperative game there’s always a better move you could have done on someone else’s turn. The way I feel is that if I’m going to play a game by myself… Why bring out something that takes up table space and will draw people’s eye to how few people I have to play with? I’m far more likely to just stick Pokemon in my 3DS, or Metroid: Fusion in my Gameboy Advance.

Introduction + Rules of Play

But Orchard looked like something that would be just as good with one or ten sharing the same hand of cards, because there are so many options that everyone would be able to come up with a different one. And having played the PnP, I stand by that opinion. It’s surprisingly fun to discuss your options with another person, and my favourite moments with Orchard are when you go to place a card and your partner goes “NO, NOT THERE!”

Orchard is made up of just 18 cards (the same as Circle the Wagons!) but also contains fifteen dice in three colours. You deal nine cards face down and draw the top one, placing it as the start of your orchard, then set the other nine aside – you can conveniently play another round by just picking up this stack. The goal is simple; acquire as many points as possible (with a ‘soft’ upper limit of 50, because you can probably go higher) by overlapping trees of the same colour. That’s all there is to it! The dice are for scorekeeping and get upgraded to 1s with one overlap, 3s with two, and 6s with three; the proper retail version even has custom-printed dice allowing for 10s. You can also use two ‘rotten fruit’ tokens, worth -3 points each, to overlap trees that don’t match. When you’ve used all nine cards, tally your score!

This game is really too small to do a proper review with different sections, so let’s just do it the old-fashioned way!

The Good:

• The theme! I really enjoy the simplicity without it being set in an ugly European castle as so many board games without a narrative seem to be, and the different coloured dice really feel juicy to look at when placed on the fruit trees. The purple is especially pleasant. A nice example of a game’s theme enhancing its components and vice versa.
• The brain-teasing! You need to put a surprising amount of thought into this game. Discussing your options with a partner offers a nice depth as you both compare  However, from the rounds I’ve played I haven’t seen much strategy, as such, beyond planning ahead a little; although with a new card in your hand each time I don’t really see how much that’s needed either.
• The speed! With how quickly you get through the nine cards (as long as you’re not spending an age on each decision, which actually takes some of the fun out of it), it’s almost impossible not to pick up that tantalising second stack of nine cards and play another round. I’ve never played just one game of Orchard.
• The size! Orchard, much like Circle the Wagons, greatly benefits from the fact you can fit it in your pocket. Combined with the speed it means there’s no real reason not to take it with you if you go to a friend’s house, on holiday, to the coffee shop, or really anywhere!

To be Improved:

• It’s very fiddly (and that’s odd for a game with just nine cards in play). The biggest (and really only) issue I have with Orchard for what it is, is how fiddly it is. After playing a few rounds in a row I actually start getting wary of placing a card so that each of the six trees overlaps another that already has a dice on it. This means that you have to pick up six dice, keeping them all in the same order, and making sure you remember what is on each face. God forbid you drop one, or nudge another, because it could mean the difference between beating your high score. This is another reason the game actually works just as well with more than one player; more hands to hold onto dice!
• Some cards are difficult to use. As a small complaint, I’ve found that the number 2 and 18 cards, the only cards with all three colour pairs of trees next to each other, are surprisingly hard to use. Whenever you draw them it’s hard not to groan, as they fit almost nowhere unless you’ve intentionally set the other cards up to facilitate it when you finally draw it. If you draw it early, therefore, it can remain dead weight for a while. Not really a huge problem as your hand size never changes, but worth mentioning.

Conclusion

Orchard is a fun little puzzle and is actually really satisfying to play. It’s certainly not excellent, as the colour-matching means it’s essentially Circle the Wagons for one player with fewer scoring conditions. On the other hand, Orchard is in an advantageous position in that it’s rather unfair to really compare it to anything. Furthermore, having played hardly any other solitaire games besides solitaire itself, I’m actually not able to. So, for a first foray into the genre and a very enjoyable puzzle which takes so little time you can easily play it once a day (as I do) I’d definitely recommend Orchard. It’s hard to find any major problems in something so simple.

Overall: 7/10

They’ve used all the tree and fruit puns in the rulebook.