Board Game Bonsai

This is an abstract board game for players who immerse themselves in the art of creating bonsai trees to decorate the imperial garden with their masterpiece. Throughout the game, players take care of their bonsai, guiding its growth – laying out hexes of trunks, leaves, flowers and fruits that will bring them victory points at the end of the game.

It all starts with a small pot – an initial seishi token, which players will upgrade to be able to receive and store more resources. In the Zen deck, in addition to these permanent upgrades, players will meet masters and assistants that bring an instant bonus; as well as scroll cards that determine additional ways to earn victory points. In the «Tokonoma» game variant, scroll cards are mixed into the first half of the deck so that players can determine their priorities as early as possible.

Growing your bonsai – a pleasantly meditative process, which, however, is subject to many requirements.

• A trunk can only be attached to another trunk token. At the end of the game, it will bring 0 victory points.
• A leaf must grow from at least one trunk token. It brings 3 victory points.
• A flower must touch at least one leaf token. It will bring points for each side that it does not touch other tokens.
• A fruit is located between two leaf tokens. It brings 7 victory points.

So how do you harmonize the growth of your bonsai? On his turn, a player can perform one of the following two actions:

• Meditate, taking one available card from the «market», as well as the bonsai token or tokens located under this card.
• Treat, adding as many bonsai tokens to his tree as the symbols depicted on the seishi token and growth cards.

Each game involves random general tasks that have several levels of difficulty. The player who fulfills the requirements of this task can take this token for himself, or decide to pursue your challenge, which in turn will bring him more victory points. In games with beginners, task tokens can be omitted altogether.

The game ends when the Zen deck runs out. Players proceed to count victory points for hexes, scrolls, and acquired task tokens.

In solo mode, the game will offer to have time to score the number of points necessary for victory while quickly scrolling through the deck. The game has 5 scenarios with a consistently increasing level of difficulty, which dictate certain additional conditions that require competent planning of actions.