Bloom Roll and Write Game Overview
Sshhhh. I’m hijacking one of Scott’s articles about a nature-themed game. Yes, I know I already did that with my Cottage Garden overview, but that one was in the polyomino family so I kind of felt like it was fair game (Ha! Fair game). Not that it matters because I’m kind of prone to helping myself to Scott’s stuff anyhow so this is nothing new. I have some really cool Cracker Jack cards and Fatima team cards that may or may not have made their way from his collection into mine. (Bet you didn’t know that little tidbit about me!) And lots of $2 bills, too. I loved them well before we took a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Sorry, sidetracked… Today we’re going to have a chat about flowers! We’ll be making bouquets (not this kind of bouquet) in Bloom from Gamewright. It’s not only about flowers, but it uses dice! You already know how I feel about dice games… but this one involves making polyomino shapes, too! Bloom plays up to five people and is not only fast to set up, but it comes in a compact box. Each player takes a random flower sheet. They’re labeled A through E on the bottom right corner. Make sure each player has a unique letter so nobody is working on the same objectives. Give everyone a pen or pencil then place the six dice in the center of the table. You’re ready to play!
The forms display six flower beds consisting of an assortment of pink, teal, orange, yellow, purples and white flowers. The colored flowers are arranged in groups ranging in size from two up to four. The white flowers are always singles.
Learning how to play Bloom is almost as quick as the setup. The first player will roll all the dice. You may notice that the colors of the dice match the colors of the flowers on the sheet. There’s a reason for that. The dice represent the customer orders and are how you select flowers from the various garden beds!
Beginning with the person who rolled the dice, each person selects one of the available dice and creates a bouquet based on the color and number of pips on the selected die. If you have a “3” purple die then you’ll circle three purple flowers together. White flowers on the paper are wild and can represent any color of flower. Similarly, the clear die is wild and you can claim what color you want it to represent.
Each player selects a die from the remaining pool until all players have selected one. Then play passes to the next player on the left who rolls all the dice and the process repeats. Unfortunately, while there are six dice, there’s a good chance that what’s available isn’t what you had hoped. Especially if you are the last player for that round! For example, if there’s only a “six” of a color available and you don’t have that many to bundle together then you’ll have to either circle one of a different color or not fulfill the entire order. Either way, you’re creating an unhappy customer. There’s a space on the form where you record unhappy customers. You’ll receive negative points for those during scoring.
Speaking of which… we should probably talk about the scoring process. Each time you have utilized all the flowers of a particular color, you call out “Bouquet” and circle the next available scoring value of that color on your sheet. Everyone else will cross out the next number on their sheets. When you’ve completely used all the flowers in an entire bed, you’ll circle the leftmost “Garden Beds” number.
The game continues until one player has completed three different colors of flours OR one player has finished a fourth garden bed. Everyone finishes the round then scoring commences. The player with the most points wins! This is a simple game that can move quickly once people learn how to play. It’s one of many Gamewright titles available and among the next craze in the market, Roll and Write or Flip and Write games. You can pick up a copy of Bloom on Amazon for under $10!! Find out if more of these types of games are blossoming in Gamewright’s line by visiting them on Facebook and Twitter.
Have you played a roll and write game lately?
Very interesting. I haven’t tried a roll and write yet.
This one looks like it would be different than other games we have played and I do like the idea of roll and write. I think we would get a kick out of calling out Bouquet.