Rogue Review – Bloom

Have you ever wanted to be a florist? Gathering beautiful bouquets of flowers for surly and demanding customers? Do you enjoy the simplicity of quick “roll and write” style games? If either of those are true, then you might want to give Bloom from Gamewright a try.

Gameplay- A

This is a “Roll and Write” style game meaning mechanically, the game is very straightforward. If you’re not familiar with the term, think of Yahtzee or Qwixx. Each round, a player will roll the set of six dice. They will choose one die, and then circle a set of flowers 0n their game card. The next player in line will choose from the remaining dice until all players have selected a die (in a two player game, each player ends up picking two of the dice). Play proceeds with the dice being rolled by the next player in line and repeating.

The dice themselves represent a customer request. The blue die with five pips indicates that a customer has requested five blue flowers. As the florist, the player will attempt to circle five blue flowers on their game card, indicating they have picked those flowers. You score points by circling all of the flowers of a certain color. If you are the first to collect all of a color, you score six points. The second player to collect that color scores four points, and the third only two points.

You also score points by collecting all the flowers in a garden bed, one of the six rectangular areas on your card. The first one completed earns you three points, second four, etc. These points are unaffected by the actions of others. Every player can score full points from their garden beds. Play proceeds until one player has scored three different colors or scored four garden beds. The current round is finished and then scores tallied.

While playing, you must be careful to keep your customers happy. When you select a die, you must gather the number of flowers indicated on the die, in the color of the die. The clear die can be used as any color, though it must be used only as a single color.

As you can see from the example, there are no groupings of a particular color greater than four. So what do you do if you are forced to select a die showing a five or six? Fortunately, the white flowers are wilds, and can be included with any color. Beyond that, you will be forced to have an “unhappy customer.” For each color in a bouquet not of the requested color, or for each missing flower (i.e., you have less than the desired amount), you get one unhappy customer, which is worth -1 point. For example, if you take the six sided pink die, you can circle a group of four pinks, and one white plus one additional flower. That results in the correct number, but one flower of the wrong color, earning you -1 points.

It is often beneficial to circle more flowers than you need and eat a few negative points in order to be the first to score a particular color. If taking a -1 lets you score a color first, earning you 6 points and everyone else a max of 4 for that color, you’re still ahead. This is especially worth considering near the end. If you can trigger the end of the game by finishing a color and scoring a garden bed, it may be worth a few negative points.

Finally, each player has the ability to reroll the dice once. When it is your turn to select a die, you can opt to use your reroll and roll the remaining dice before selecting one. You can use this even if you didn’t roll them in the first place. You do not reroll dice already selected by a player, just those remaining. If you don’t use this ability during the game, you score one bonus point. This is another ability that’s particularly useful toward the end.

Production- A

The game comes in a small box allowing for easy storage and transport, as this is a good game to pull out to kill a bit of time as it does not take long to play. It comes with the six colored dice, all a vivid shade leaving no color confusion, at least for non-colorblind. The best feature is the game cards themselves. You get five pads of cards, each with a different configuration of flowers on them. This allows five players to each have a unique build and for more variety each time you play.

Theme- B+

For games like this, often the theme is only window dressing. You’re really playing the game for the mechanics. And while that’s mostly true here, the game does actually succeed in utilizing the theme. The flowers in your beds look like flowers and there’s a bit of fun to declare you had an unhappy customer when you score those negative points. This proves just enough to bring the theme up from irrelevant to nice addition.

Expansions- TBD

Not that kind of game.

Conclusion- A

This is a great, quick and easy to learn game. If you are a fan of the roll and write genre, you’ll certainly enjoy it, as while clearly of that genre, its unique twist keeps it from feeling too similar to any other game.

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