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- How about a solo challenge EVERY month?
How about a solo challenge EVERY month?
A free PnP that will keep calling you back
PnP Time
January 29, 2026
In partnership with
A solo PnP that does not gather dust on your shelf, but shows up on your table every single month?
What wizardry is this?
Since August 2018, the Orchard Solo Challenge on BoardGameGeek has run without missing a beat. Every month. Non-stop. For more than 7 years!
Month after month, players around the world sit down with the same small deck of cards, follow a shared setup, and compare how well they managed their orchard. No expansions required. No new rules to learn. Just a familiar game asking a new question each time. That has to be rare!
Orchard began its life as a print and play entry in a BoardGameGeek design contest in 2018, created by Mark Tuck. It went on to win the Golden Geek Award for Best Print and Play Game and was later published by Side Room Games.
You are a gardener, starting with an empty plot of land and a handful of fruit trees. With each card you add, your orchard slowly takes shape. Healthy trees bear fruit, but poor planning leads to overcrowding and rotten harvests. It is a gentle game, but one that mirrors the decisions you are constantly making as you build.
Mechanically, Orchard is a card layering game about overlapping matching trees to harvest fruit for points. You score using a pool of dice that represent apples, pears, and plums. There is no rolling here. The dice act as both limits and opportunities. Add in rotten fruit tokens that can cost you points to fix a bad situation, and suddenly every placement matters more than it first appears.
It is easy to learn, set up, carry, and teach. A round takes only a few minutes, yet it constantly nudges you to think ahead. Where do I place this card? Which fruit am I locking myself out of? Is this the right time to accept a penalty for a better future harvest?
The solo mode is already satisfying on its own, but the monthly challenge is what gives Orchard its long legs. Knowing that players everywhere are tackling the same puzzle adds a quiet sense of competition, even when you are playing alone. It turns a short solo game into a shared ritual.
Interested in Orchard and a solo challenge that might just outlast your gaming shelf? Oh, and did I say it’s free?
-Tas.
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