Do you enjoy gardening?

It’s therapeutic, rewarding, and has this feel-good aspect to it which I’m sure many of you will vibe with.

But let’s take a different angle here...

Imagine a RACE to plant flowers. A turf war over your communal rooftop garden!

That is the premise of Rooftop Roses, yet another game by Chris Backe that has landed on my table, illustrated by Parker Simpson. Having played a decent number of games by the duo, I couldn’t help myself the instant I got the preview files in hand.

Rooftop Roses is an area-control game where you roll 3 dice, use 2 of them to determine where you’ll plant your roses, and use the remaining one to water a row or column.

The aim? Score the most points by having the most roses in rows and columns, while watering them to make those rows and columns worth more.

Each rose counts towards controlling both its row and column, so you’ll be fighting over different parts of the garden while also trying to make the areas you control worth more points.

You also have a few powers at your disposal, letting you reroll a die, adjust its value by 1, or plant an extra rose. You start with one of each, and can earn more when your opponents end up with rolling doubles or triples.

As the garden fills up, the compost pile starts creeping into the equation, pushing the game toward its end. The third compost mark ends the game, or, much more rarely, the garden simply fills up first.

Pretty straightforward. Print the common sheet and a scoring sheet per player. 4 scoring sheets are contained in one page, so printing just that one would do.

So, 2 pages in total, add 3 D6 dice and some colored pens, and you’re good to go.

I played it with my wife over the past few days, and here are a few of my findings:

The game is based on a 6 by 6 grid, so there are only 36 spaces to work with. It’s rare for players to actually plant in all 36. Add to that, with each round, the available spaces keep shrinking.

And that creates this crunchy situation where you start fixating on every remaining spot, figuring out where a rose or two would benefit you the most by the end. An ignored space a few rounds ago can suddenly become highly contested, especially when it could help you secure a row or column while denying your opponent the same.

Rooftop Roses, despite being a competitive area-control game, can still be therapeutic. But there’s no room for complacency, so don’t get too casual!

Even from the first roll, it’s best to be aware of where you’re planting roses, which rows or columns you want to focus your planting and watering on, and above all, when to call it quits. That is, when to mark the compost pile. This might seem forced at first, but you can definitely strategize around it.

You can’t solely focus on your own progress either, as your opponent’s progress will inevitably impact yours.

Which takes me to my next point!

Ah, my favorite game concept, and I have Chris Backe to thank for introducing me to it. I first witnessed this concept in play in his Dragon vs Kingdom.

For those who don’t know, Opponent Parasitism is when players can benefit from the progress or setup of their opponents, and vice versa. Your opponent doing well can sometimes create opportunities for you too.

And Rooftop Roses slips that in beautifully. Rolling doubles and triples don’t only benefit the player who rolled them, they can also help the other players build up their powers.

I love how that ties everyone’s fate together. The area-control aspect already keeps you invested in what everyone else is doing, but having your opponents occasionally hand you benefits takes that connection even further.

While playing with my wife, at some point it felt less like we were gardening and more like we were battling to conquer LANDS, haha.

While that’s naturally the case with area-control games, I feel this system could click really well with tons of other themes, just as much as it does with a rooftop gardening contest. A tussle for territories, for example. Heck, even an election campaign where each area unit represents a state!

I can also see the powers being increased/modified/adapted alongside those themes. Meaning, I’d genuinely love to see expansions or different editions of this, because it feels like a really good foundation for more to come.

This actually dawned on me while reading Chris’ designer diary for the game. He already launched Dragon vs Kingdom's second edition with Parker earlier this year.

Maybe a second edition of Rooftop Roses is on the cards? You heard it here first!

Just kidding. Chris, you know what to do. ;)

If this therapeutic-meets-turf-war game vibes with you, it’s part of the first-ever PnP Bundle by Florian Fiedler and Chris Backe.

The bundle features 3 games in total: Rooftop Roses, Echoes of Tomorrow, and Centi. And you have a little over a week to back all of them at a shocker of a deal.

Check them out and see if they click with you. Certainly did with me!

- Tas.

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