Read the full review with pictures on our blog: https://hesaidshesaidgames.com/2017/10/09/game-review-photos...
In a small forest, several varieties of trees compete to grow and spread their seeds. As trees grow, leaves that are exposed to the sun and cast shadows on smaller trees around it. Over time, the larger trees will reach the end of their life cycle, falling to create room for new trees to grow in the small forest.
Designer: <PERSON>
Artist: <PERSON>
Publisher: Blue Orange Games
Genre: Area Control, Abstract
Players: 2-4
Play Time: 30-60 Minutes
Number of Logged Plays: 4
Game Overview
In Photosynthesis, players will be controlling a species of tree growing in a small forest. Players will try to position their trees in the forest to gather the most sunlight, even if that means blocking opponents’ trees from gathering precious sunlight. Sunlight will be turned into light points that can be used to get more trees, seeds, spread seeds, and grow trees.
Light points will vary quite a bit as the sun rotates around the board, so players will have to decide when is the best time to do certain actions. The goal of the game is to get the most amount of victory points, which can be gained by putting a tree through its full life cycle. After three full rotations of the sun around the board, the game will end and the player with the most points is the winner.
Game Play
Photosynthesis starts with sun segment being placed on the sun symbol on the board and players taking turns placing a small tree on any open space on the outer ring of the board. The remaining two seeds, two small trees, and one medium tree are placed in the player’s available for use area in front of them. The game is now ready to begin. Each round in Photosynthesis takes place over two phases:
Photosynthesis Phase
The player with the first player token will move the sun to the next position in a clockwise direction. (This step is skipped in the first round).
Each player then gains light points for any trees that aren’t in the shadow of another tree (Only a maximum of 20 Light Points can be stored).
- Small Trees = 1 Light Point
- Medium Trees = 2 Light Points
- Large Trees = 3 Light Points
Life Cycle Phase
During this phase, players will spend their light points to perform actions starting with the first player. The number of light points required by each action is listed on the player board. 581
The possible actions a player can take are below:
Buying – Buy trees and plants off of their player board and put them into their available for use area in front of them.
Planting a Seed – Plant a seed from their available area onto the board from an existing tree. The distance a seed can be placed away from a tree is based on what size it is:
- Small Tree – 1 space away
- Medium Tree – 2 spaces away
- Large Tree – 3 spaces away
Growing A Tree – Grow a seed into a tree or grow a tree to the next size up. Only trees from a player’s available area can be used to grow seeds and trees. When a tree is grown to the next level, the smaller version of that tree is returned back to the player board to the topmost spot of the corresponding column. If there are no available spaces for it, then it is removed from the game (this will be the case for the starting seeds and trees players begin the game with).
Collecting – Once a tree is at it’s largest size, it can be collected for points. The large tree will be removed from the board and placed back on the player’s board (topmost open spot of the corresponding column) and the player will take a scoring token with the same symbol that the Large Tree was growing on.
Players can perform any of those actions as many times as they want as long as they have the light points to pay for it. The only thing players need to keep in mind is that a space on the board can only be activated once per turn. So if you plant a seed, the tree the seed came from and the space the seed is planted on would both be activated for the round. The tree wouldn’t be able to be grown this turn to the next level because that would require activating the space again. This also prevents growing the same tree twice in one round as well.
Once the sun has gone around the board three times (18 rounds), the game is over. Players will add the points up they receive from the score tokens and will also get points for every three unused light points. The player with the most points is the winner!
Advanced Variant
The advanced variant adds one more sun rotation to the game which extends the game out to 24 rounds. 597