Solar Gardens Components Overview and Impressions

Darrington Press recently sent over their latest title, Solar Gardens, and we were really excited to get this one opened and reviewed. We have previously looked at Queen by Midnight: Quarter Past and the production of that game was incredible! With that in the back of my mind, I assumed we would be getting an equally impressive production here. I was not disappointed.

Solar Gardens is not going to be a cheap game at retail, and at first glance you might be wondering what you are paying for. Currently in Canada, you can preorder this for about 51.99 which seems pretty reasonable for what you get. Like I said, at first glance you might wonder, “is this it?”

There isn’t a lot in the box. A ton of square tiles depicting various icons you’ll use in scoring is the bulk of the game. The rest of the box consists of player boards and player aids. That is all!

The tiles are tiles. If you’ve played any tile laying game, you know what to expect from these. They do look great, though. There is a nice balance of artwork and iconography that makes it pretty to look at when you’ve finished building your garden, but also easy to score. And there are a lot of ways to score, whether through solar panels and wind turbines, animal habitats, paths, gardens, and statues. Like I said, pretty to look at, easy to score. There is a hard balance to find, and I think the design team nailed it.

What I love about this production are the player boards. These fold up to store in the box, but the fold actually helps keep the dual layered board laying flat. So often, dual layer boards tend to bend and curve as a result of the glueing process, but all 5 of my included boards laid perfectly flat. The dual layer comes in hand for keeping all of your tiles secure, and while you might bump a few tiles as you play, they are less likely to fly all over the place as they would if the board was not inset a bit.

There are also extremely large player aids for every player at the table, and these are nice and thick as well. In fact, if someone pre-reads the rules ahead of your game night, these player aids is all you need to teach the game. They are very detailed, and provided all the information we need to know to play Solar Gardens. All of this great production does come with one drawback in my opinion: the box is absolutely huge, and there are no storage options included for the tiles.

This game definitely could have been made smaller. The tiles could have been smaller, making the player boards smaller, and while I love the oversized thick player aids, they also could be so much smaller. For those that love chunky pieces that are easy to draw, spin and place, then I think you’ll love this production. For those that need more space on their shelves for games, not less, you might leave your plays of this game wishing it was just a smaller box overall.

Regardless of box size, this production is great. After grabbing a few of my many extra baggies to store the extra pieces, I have no complaints about this release. The detailed scoring pad is also a great addition to the game – it blows my mind how many multi-scoring option games don’t come with a score pad – why? Good thing Darrington Press knows what gamers want! If a solid production means a lot to you, then Solar Gardens is going to fit that need. And spoilers: the gameplay is really solid as well!