[Ad – Gifted Products] Every other week we play a board game at our local Geek Retreat to try out a new board game. This time, we went with Flora Funga, which is actually two similar board games in one long, rectangular box. I do find the idea of having two games in one box to be such a strange idea, and Flora Funga was no exception.
Let’s talk about the mushroom side of Flora Funga to start, as this is the first version of the game we played. This side is all about mushrooms. The board itself is magnetically bent around the box. So we took this off, flattened it out, and each player got a hand full of cards from the funga side of the game. On this side, we each got a bee, that started at the rock side of the board, which counts scores. We then created a hand by selecting three cards from our hands, which is our goals for the game. Each person also got a special target too, which could have your cards hidden or change how many points your card is worth, for example.
The actual gameplay in Flora Funga, on the mushroom side, then has us moving around the table placing a mushroom on the board. Your goals are specific to your cards – some want a line of mushrooms, some what a pattern of mushrooms, some want mushrooms with spiders in specific places. We continue going around the rotation until all of the mushrooms are placed, and then it’s time to score based on cards. To keep track of scores, you can move the bees on the rock side. I do feel that this score counting aspect with the bees doesn’t make a ton of sense – but we did all love the mushroom designs and how cool this board game felt. Amelia and Robin easily could play it too.
We then switched to the dandelion side of Flora Funga, putting away all of the cards and pieces. This board game was much stronger than the mushroom side for us. Once we had our goal cards, all picked out (we did not get the special token to change up the game), we then got to work trying to fulfil our cards for points. This is done by growing dandelions. On your turn, a player can place one, two or three tokens into the field, depending on how far along the game is. This is shown by where the bee is on the rock pile. The bee also lets you know when the dandelions reset – which is idea for people who have cards that require younger dandelions to fulfil.
In Flora Funga on this side of the game, you are essentially transforming dandelion leaves, adding buds on them, then the flower onto the bud, then the white-top onto the flower. Your goal is to match the cards in your hand. Once they have been matched on the board, even if it’s not your turn, you can place down your card. The goal is to be the first to complete all of the cards. Though this side of the game would benefit from a little diagram that shows which flowers go on top of which (for younger players like Robin) it was easily much more fun then the mushroom side. Amelia and Robin, along with Dann, enjoyed this one much more.