Game Play Review - Paint the Roses

Paint the Roses, Deluxe Version, is a game published by North Star Games. The premise of this game is for players to cooperatively take on the role of garderners in the Queen of Heart's royal garden. Players, working together, plant shrubs in the garden to help each other deduce the private cards they have. Guessing right will keep them ahead of the Queen, but make a wrong guess and you may suffer her wrath before filling the board! The game ends once either the the entire garden is filled, or immediately if the Queen catches you.

To see what is inside the deluxe version of this game, watch our unboxing video:

This post is broken into the following 3 sections, feel free to jump directly to one:

1. General summary - consisting of information about overall enjoyment, theme, replayability, and upgrades
2. Complexity - consisting of information about the rulebook, setup, player turns, and overall learning curve
3. Player turns - consisting of game type, game flow, rule you are likely to miss, and favorite aspect

Number of players we had: 3
Our play time (not including setup): 1 hour 25 minutes
Table size needed: Small (4' comfortably)

Overall enjoyment

Overall we really enjoy playing this game for many reasons. First, we enjoy cooperative games in general as they provide a different dynamic and feel than competitive games. In Paint the Roses, an active player places one of the four available shrub tiles onto the dual-layered garden board. Then all players place clue tokens for any matches with their whim cards by this placement and work together to try and decide what the matches might be on other players' cards.

Whim cards come in three different levels:

1. Easy - where all matches are color to color
2. Medium - where matches are color to color or shape to shape
3. Hard - where matches can be color to color, shape to shape or color to shape

Second, while this game is quick to learn, it is fairly strategic and a challenge to win. One of our favorite things about this game is seeing how other player's brains work. Listening to other players try to find the logic in a play you made is fun and often times you realize they found matches you did not even see. This means you are constantly learning from the game as well as how other players logic and strategize.

It is worth noting, the game requires players to guess on a whim card every turn, but we find this keeps the game momentum going and we are constantly engaged. Additionally, as the Queen moves around the board she picks up speed each time she passes the White Rabbit, so she gains on players faster and faster as the players fill the garden. One other point, the Queen moves even when players guess whim cards correctly, which also keeps the pressure on players, and believe me, you feel the pressure!

Third, all of the pieces are well made and of good quality. I backed the deluxe edition and it was absolutely worth it. The acrylic tiles and the dual-layered garden board and greenhouse are fantastic and hold the pieces perfectly. The flower tokens that attach to the Queen, which are used to track her speed increases when she passes the White Rabbit, are a genius way to track her movement! Everything about this game shows how much thought was put into every moving part, rule, and included piece.

Lastly, I should mention we enjoy the theme of this game even though we aren't avid Alice in Wonderland fans. So, I would offer that whether you are or are not an Alice in Wonderland fan, you can find yourself sucked into the theme and feeling the pressure of the Queen catching up to you.

If we had to pick one thing we don't care for about this game it would be that sometimes you almost need a timer to move the game along. We often find ourselves getting in the weeds overthinking why someone played a certain place and the game can get a little long.

Theme

The theme of this game is based off the book/movie Alice in Wonderland. This includes having the Queen of Hearts chasing players, who are playing the gardeners in the game. Everything about this game follows the theme well including the miniatures, the art on the cards, the game board with an image of the Queen's castle at the top, the flower tokens that the Queen miniature snaps onto when her speed is increased, the shrub tiles, the designs and images in the rule book, and finally the amazing game tray insert that masterfully holds all of the important pieces so they are safe between plays.

Replayability

We find this game highly replayable for the following reasons:

1. There are a great deal of whim cards and they come in three different levels: easy, medium and hard.
2. There are only four shrub tiles available in the greenhouse for players to choose from when placing a new tile in the garden on their turn. Shrub tiles are added to the greenhouse by random draw. This means there are times when you have exactly the tile you need to help other players successfully guess your whim card, and other times there isn't a single tile that will help you.
3. Every player goes about tile placement differently so you have to really pay attention to where they play as well as where they don't play.
4. There are lots of different ways to attempt to win. You might choose hard whim cards to get further in front of the Queen. You might choose medium cards so you move forward more slowly and the Queen's movement also remains slower. You might hold on to a confident guess in case the next turn reveals less clues. In other words, there are lots of things going on and all players are engaged at all times.
5. We often feel cooperative games are better at engaging more players simultaneously and keeping them engaged which is definitely true of Paint the Roses.
6. There are several additions to the base game in the deluxe version, including the Escape the Castle Expansion and the Paint the Roses Kickstarter module.

Upgrades

I purchased the deluxe edition which came with many upgrades including:

1. Acrylic garden tiles
2. Dual layered garden board
3. GameTrayz insert
4. Escape the castle components - extra large cardboard keys, additional acrylic garden tiles, several expansion card sets, and more.
5. Two game expansions - the Escape the Castle expansion and the Paint the Roses Kickstarter module.

I always appreciate games that incorporate a dual-layered board where you need to track or place items as it keeps things so much tidier. In the case of the deluxe version of this game, you absolutely need the dual-layered board because the acrylic tiles would never stay put!

Additionally, the game insert is fantastic! Everything is so well thought out, and lays together so nicely, I cannot recall seeing anything else quite like it. Not only does it all fit well, but it is displayed in such a way that it is like art. Even the lid has the name of the game in addition to pattern work that match the whimsical theme of the game. So well thought out on all counts!

Rule book

The rule book is not very big because the game is not hard to learn. The rule book is very well organized, includes images and extra explanations to make sure players understand how the pattern matching works. Lastly, there are several QR codes included that players can use to learn more about the game beyond, or in place of, reading the rule book.

Setup

Setting up a game is fairly easy and only takes about 5 minutes. Start by placing the Queen, the Gardeners and the White Rabbit in their respective locations. Each player takes a set of clue tokens and a card from one of the whim decks, keeping in mind, only one player at a time can have a whim card from the easy deck. Place the starting shrub tiles in their numbered locations, fill the velvet bag with the remaining shrub tiles, then fill the greenhouse card with four random shrub tiles and you are ready to begin.

Turns

Turns can be short or long, and are often based on the amount of information players have to guess the other players' whim cards. Each turn the active player places a new shrub tile into the garden. Then each player places clue tokens, only on the newly-placed tile, where matches are made with surrounding tiles based on their unique whim card. When a player places a number of cubes that can mean multiple matches, a turn takes longer.

As a group, players must guess at least one player's whim card. If they succeed, they move forward around the board according to the number on the card they successfully guessed. Players can can continue to guess whim cards or quit guessing and then move the Queen. If they fail at a whim guess, only the Queen moves.

Overall learning curve

The overall learning curve of this game is not very high, however, that does not mean it is easy to win. This game can be very challenging to win and there are several different strategies players can employ. You might try playing the hard cards so you can move away from the Queen faster, but the faster the Gardeners reach the White Rabbit, the faster the Queen's movements become.

Also, you might think it is better to guess every card you can on a turn, but it might make more sense to hold on to a guess you are sure of for the next turn in case there are no good clues provided. This helps reduce your chances of being forced to make a less confident guess which risks the Queen getting that much closer.

Play type

This is a symmetrical, cooperative game with tile placement and deduction. Players work together to deduce what whim cards other players have. Players can place hexagonal shrub tiles on the garden board based on the clues it provides for their own whim card, or perhaps to help remove possibilities for another player's card.

Game flow

Since all players are participating in each turn, by supplying clue tokens and working with the other players to reduce the number of possibilities for each players' whim cards, all players are actively playing all the time. This means the game flow is very fluid and all players remain engaged. Additionally, each turn is a series of the exact same steps so the game can be learned quickly.

Rule you are likely to forget/miss

The one rule you are likely to forget or miss is that only one player at a time can have a whim card from the easy deck. This definitely keeps the game more challenging and we typically have players pull from several of the different difficulty decks to increase our likelihood of success.

Favorite aspect

Our favorite aspect of this game is how challenging it can be to win, all while the actual game play is fun and not overly complex. It feels appropriate for players at all levels. There is so much logic and strategy employed in this game that we often find ourselves saying, "They definitely played there for a reason. They also didn't play there for a reason, what does that tell us?"

We really enjoy playing this game, in fact we sometimes play it twice in a row which is not something we often do on game night, preferring to switch it up and play several different types of games. We love the cooperative nature of this game, the theme, the fantastic dual-layered board, the miniatures, the game tray, all of it is a great quality. We also love how this game can be fun and easy at times and then other times you can go down a rabbit hole trying to strategize why a player did or didn't do something until that person is dying for you to guess their whim card. Win or lose, we always love playing this game and it will be on our shelves for a long time to come.