Matthew BaileyAs we head into the “UK Games Expo” season, I had not planned to release a review ahead of the deluge of games I’ll be turning to over the next few weeks. This, however, quickly went out the window when “Garden Heist” arrived in the post this morning (but probably yesterday when the review goes live)…
“Garden Heist” by “Ravensburger” is quite literally a hide-and-seek game with strong vibes of “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?” that had not really been on my radar. It totally blindsided me this morning, hence why even though I hadn’t planned to do a review today, I couldn’t help but break that self-imposed decision and tell you about it.
So today we are looking at “Garden Heist” with Toby (6) and Henry (2), with this being probably the first time that Henry has really stepped up to the plate to be a full reviewer here on “Little Board Gamers” having only done the odd Haba game that I have led him through. This time he is on his own…
To set up “Garden Heist,” you create the house structure that is in the box and then create the forest as shown in the photos. Each player chooses a colour and takes the respective chunky coloured raccoon meeple and places their jigsaw piece on the score track at the bottom. The finish line is dependent on the number of players, and you then select who is going to be the gardener first.
The gardener then puts their head behind the house with the window shut so that they cannot see where the other players are placing their raccoons on the back line. Once they have, the gardener gets to look to see if they can see where those raccoons have been placed through the window and then choose one to look behind. If the gardener guesses right, they get a token, and any player who managed to not get caught behind a yellow structure gets a token. But why wouldn’t the gardener just pick the yellow structure every time, I hear you ask? Well, that is because on the next turn, you move forward along the path, and if you can get to the front and to the rubbish bin, you get three tokens and more importantly, that round ends. The round can also end if the gardener manages to get five tokens.
Once the round ends, you move all of the relevant spacers along the score track and then rotate who gets to be the gardener. Both roles are really good fun, and we had an absolute blast playing this.
Henry (2) completely understood how to play and absolutely loved being the gardener and looking through the window. I will say that there does have to be a little bit of honesty, as the potential for cheating is high, so be aware if you are playing with a child who finds the temptation to cheat hard to overcome.
This continues until one player eventually crosses over the finish line and wins the game.
On the surface, this can just be played as a fun family game, but actually, there is some strategy and depth to it that becomes apparent when you start playing. Firstly, the social deduction tactic of whether they are going to go behind the yellow structure and obviously go for a point or go behind a green structure hoping that the gardener will pick the yellow structure so they can eventually get to the rubbish bin at the front, claim the three points, and end the round. One of the reasons I actually really enjoyed playing this was because Henry (3) obviously didn’t have quite this level of social thinking, so the dichotomy of playing against Henry (3) and Toby (6) (who can best be described as a cunning, wily fox) was interesting. Another issue that Toby ran into is that if you focus on one player, you then have to try and remember not only where the other player theoretically could be but also what row they might be on. At one point, Toby thought I was on the nearest row, but actually, I was on the one before that.
There are a number of variants for two and five players, including an interesting high-five variant where any two raccoons who are sharing a hiding space have to high-five between turns, and also a platform mode where little wooden platforms are used to raise the raccoons and make them harder to hide.
We also played a house rules variant that fed into the social deduction aspect where, if I chose to as a raccoon, I didn’t have to move. I could therefore try and bluff the gardener as to what row I was in, and this added an interesting extra dynamic that myself and Toby really bought into.
I was completely caught off-guard in terms of how much, as an adult, I enjoyed playing this with my kids. To be honest, I think I would actually quite enjoy playing this without them as it’s unbelievably charming and really different in terms of a tabletop game.
The components are extremely high quality, everything is made really well, and the game has incredible table presence. On that note, I will say that you do require a large table to play this on, and I think this is the type of game that probably would actually work better on a coffee table than on a larger table like we played on. The meeples themselves are really nice, but one weird little quirk I noticed is the fact they chose blue, orange, pink, and yellow as the four colours, leaving out obvious colours such as green and red. I can imagine under yellow or relatively dim lighting, you might find the pink and the orange a little bit tricky to tell apart. Another tiny criticism is the decision to use the jigsaw-style score track pieces ended up causing some frayed cardboard edges even though we had only had a few games. This is me being super picky
When I woke up this morning, I was not expecting to play “Garden Heist,” and to be honest, “Garden Heist” was not a game that had even really featured on my radar. But having played several rounds of it this afternoon and then showing it to Jack (9) and Katie this evening, I am ready to wax lyrical.
“Garden Heist” is an innovative and cool family game with an amazing table presence that deserves every bit of praise I can give it. It’s reasonably priced compared to a larger Haba game of this quality and for what you get in the box it’s worth it. This is a game that I think would sit very happily in anyone’s family collection.
Disclaimer: A copy of “Garden Heist” was provided by “Ravensburger” for the purposes of review. Our thoughts and opinions are however my own (Henry(2) and Toby(6) aren’t going to have their judgement clouded I can assure you).
