A Heartless Card game for 2 to 4 players ages 10 and up
Abandon all Artichokes is an easy deck building games. The theme is a vegetable garden where the artichokes have taken over. The game is a mix of strategy and luck.
At first, the game takes a little bit of learning but it is worth the effort and only takes a few turns to get the hang of.
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Object of Abandon all Artichokes
The object of the game is to be the first player to get a hand of non-artichoke cards by collecting other vegetable cards.
Setting Up
To set up Abandon all Artichokes, first each player gets a stack of ten artichoke cards. These cards are placed face down on the table. Next, the other cards are shuffled and then five cards are set face up beside the draw pile. The cards in the stack are called the garden stack and the face up cards are These the garden row. Last, each player draws five cards from their personal decks to make their hands.
Each player also has a personal discard pile. Also, there is a community compost pile that is place to the side of the garden stack.
The Abandon all Artichokes Cards
There are two types of cards.
First, there are the artichoke cards. These have no powers and your goal is to get rid of as many as you can.
Next are the other vegetable cards. There are 10 other vegetables in the mix. Each vegetable has a different power. Some let you compost an artichoke card, some let you interact with other players and some let you add other vegetables into your deck.
Playing Abandon all Artichokes
There are many steps to a players turn.
First, a player draws enough cards off their personal deck to have five cards in their hands.
Second, a player harvests a card from the garden row. After carefully looking at the cards in the garden row, you can choose one card to put in your hand (unless that card’s special power is a different action.)
Third, a player can now play any cards she has in her hand. She does not have to play the card that she just harvested. Instead, she can play as many cards as she can or wants to that are in her hand with one exception. She can only play a card if she can fulfill the full action of the card.
Fourth, she places any unused cards in her face up personal discard pile.
Last, she draws a new hand of five cards from her personal deck.
Winning Abandon all Artichokes
When a player draws a new hand and he has only vegetables and no artichokes then he wins the game.
What We Like
First, the artwork in this game is fabulous. The characters are cute and whimsical. Next, we like that it is a mix of strategy and luck. This makes it a great deck building game for players who are not well versed in the deck building world. It also makes it a more even playing field for players of different skills levels.
Third, the suggested play time of 20 minutes is actuate. This is a good time for a game like this. However, after the first game we seems to not have had enough and we often play one or two more times.
What We Don’t Like
My biggest problem with Abandon all Artichokes is the box. It is in the shape of an artichoke. This means that it doesn’t fit in any stack or shelf. That said, the quality of the tin is good and a good size.
Next, the original learning curve made the first game very confusing. I guess this is to be expected with a game of this level, but it did make us question if we were going to enjoy playing.
Third, occasionally we will end up with a garden row full of veggies that no one wants. I suppose this is just part of the game but I wonder if a rule that says that if the garden row is full of peas (or any other veggie) then they can be composted and a new garden row replaces the composted one.
Is Abandon all Artichokes Worth Adding to your Family Game Shelf?
How many games makes playing with vegetables fun? Not many. Abandon all Artichokes makes you laugh with it’s cute pictures and powers. Players will love playing a veggie that has them stealing or swapping cards with other players and the excitement of composting an artichoke…sounds silly and it kind of is but that’s what gaming should be about.
We recommend making room on your Family Game Shelf for this veggie loving card game.
To get you copy of Abandon all Artichokes shop here. For Canadian shoppers, click here.
Foe more games check out Ruckus, Sleeping Queens and Go Boom. Be sure to visit our Family Game Shelf shop for tons of fun with seasonal games, original games like our Whacky Putt (dice mini golf!) and our line of escape rooms for kids!
Rating:
Julia:
Carrie-Anne:
Joel:
Pros: quality, artwork, easy to play
Cons: box shape, learning curve
Mom: strategic and critical thinking
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