Review | Springtime Favorites

Spring has almost sprung, and Twenty Sided is bidding adieu to the cold and the snow by pulling out our favorite spring and nature themed games! In this article, we’ll take a look at Photosynthesis, Blossoms, Arboretum, The Warren, Baby Bestiary, and some of our favorite puzzles!

Blossoms

One of our favorite 2-player nature-themed games, Blossoms is the game about growing, collecting, and arranging flowers into beautiful bouquets. The game is simple to learn and straightforward in its gameplay, which make it a perfect light game for a beautiful bright day.

Blossoms is one of our favorites at Twenty Sided Store when we want an upbeat and simple game with playful artwork. Blossoms also has rule variants that increase player count to three or increase difficulty so it’s a game that grows with you.

The Warren

If you’re looking for a great roleplaying game to take you into spring, look no farther than The Warren, an RPG captures the surprisingly complicated lives of intelligent, resourceful rabbits. The Warren focuses on the changing of seasons and how this affects the smallest in the animal kingdom, as they fight to survive and build a community.

We love how versatile The Warren is - it can be played in two hours or over multiple sessions, and uses a modified version of the popular Powered by the Apocalypse game engine, so the setting and mechanics feel incredibly unique and unlike any other game we’ve played before. Bringing the action to the micro-scale of the animal kingdom heightens the stakes and allows for players to explore themes of survival, community, and resilience.

Arboretum

Arboretum celebrates the beauty of a finely curated grove of trees, with gorgeous illustrations of different species of trees. Players compete to create the most appealing path of trees for visitors to see, balancing what trees to keep in their hand with the ones they want to place.

This game is a favorite for its artwork, with beautiful and realistic renderings of mighty trees, but the light strategy of the game is appealing as a fun brainteaser for a beautiful spring afternoon.

Baby Bestiary Volume 1 and Volume 2

Baby Bestiary is a unique monster compendium for fantasy roleplay games that opens up play to include the interaction with and raising of baby monsters. From adorably large-eyed owlbears to the lithe displacer beast kitten, the artwork in The Baby Bestiary 1 and 2 is enough to warrant a place on your shelf, but the information contained make it a welcome addition to any fantasy setting.

We love the Baby Bestiary for games focused less on combat and more on adventure, with a focus on finding and training familiars. We also love it just to look at cute pictures of baby monsters. (Seriously - the baby beholder will melt your heart).

Puzzles

When the day is beautiful, constructing a puzzle in the sun is a wonderful way to relax, or a perfect indoor activity to wait out spring showers. All of the puzzles we carry at Twenty Sided Store are chosen for the unique and beautiful artwork they feature. 

Some of our favorite puzzles are the Eurographics Fine Art collection, featuring meticulous recreations of some of the world's most famous artistic masterpieces; The New York Puzzle Company’s Cornell Lab of Ornithology collection, for detailed drawings of distinguished birds; and the gorgeous nature landscapes from Buffalo Games & Puzzles.

Photosynthesis 

Last by not least is Photosynthesis, one of the most popular games of the last few years. In Photosynthesis, players compete as arborists planting trees, casting shadows, and completing their trees’ circle of life. Photosynthesis is played in phases as the sun travels around the board, earning players points as they strategically place their trees to get enough sunlight.

We love Photosynthesis not only for it’s stimulating strategic gameplay, but especially for its stunningly beautiful design; detailed upright trees in four different colors begin to fill up the board as a gorgeous yellow sun rotates around them. Photosynthesis is a perfect way to celebrate mother nature and the circle of life.

Written by Johnni Medina