HAVE YOU PLAYED

Exchange, Expand, Exploit, Extinguish in the deceptively pleasant looking

The leafy looking 4X game, Photosynthesis

From the mind of Hjalmar Hach (Railroad Ink, The King’s Dilemma) comes this 2017 gem which has the appearance – thanks to artist Sabrina Miramon’s fine work – of a relaxing game about planting trees, the circle of life, and nature in balance. Maybe this is game you would like to play between yoga and a meditation session, the box art suggests…

In reality, Photosynthesis feels more like a multi-directional grapple between players – with each attempting to choke the life out of one another before they, too, have to give up their grip. For those looking for a ‘nice time’ you may find yourself shocked by the way that other players will start to block ‘your’ light, and start starving you of the vital resources that power the game.

WHAT IS IT?

Photosynthesis could, in fact, be called a 4X game (thanks to Matthew Vernall for this comparison and the strapline). While usually these games are focused on the four X’s of explore, expand, exploit an exterminate, here things are slightly twisted because your actions are much more indirect – and in some ways, this makes it all the more vicious.

Players pick a colour of cardboard tree, take a handful of seeds, and a player board. Most of the trees and seeds are loaded onto here – and this acts as your personal market. Players have to buy most of their trees and new seeds from here as the game progresses using light points – the main currency of the game. Once a tree is removed from the board, either by growing up and eventually rotting it is returned to this board if there is space.

Players can place a number of sapling trees at the start of the game, and from these they have the choice of dropping seeds a distance away, or growing the tree. Growing trees means replacing a tree with the next size up, and therefore extending its reach – for both seeds and how far its shadow is cast.

Gaining light points uses an innovative orbiting sun – a bit of yellow cardboard the fits on the edge of the board at various points – which shows the direction the sun is being applied to the board. Small trees get one light point, whereas medium gets two, and mature trees get three points – if the sun hits them. Each tree casts a shadow of the same value behind them, so if your tree is being blocked by a tree of the same size (i.e. bigger trees peek over the top of smaller trees and still get

some sunshine) they won’t collect any delicious light to turn into points. These points are your currency that can be used to buy more elements from your player board – so when another player blocks your sunlight from a future angle, it obviously only means one thing – war.

WHY SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?

Initially the draw of Photosynthesis is the way it looks. Over the game trees race each other towards the sky in certain hotspots, trying to claim the most sunlight, trying to block one another. If you’ve ever seen a time lapse of a plant reaching for the sun as it grows, swaying with the sun’s movement throughout the day until it is eventually big enough to comfortably reach the top of canopy, it’s a bit like that. Except you’ll see players dragged around the board with a certain magnetic quality, trees popping up from half-forgotten seeds in a sudden attempt to snatch some sunlight, a quick growth spurt to edge up above a smaller tree in front. This organic flow of the game is objectively pretty to look at – although some of my gaming group miss the ‘ownership’ of many ‘gardening’ games here. Beyond this it’s also telling of how players end up being so reactive to the board, rather than proactively rolling out a strategy.

The majority of the points come from felling giants. At any time you can decide to have your largest – and most valuable – tree fall to the forest floor and begin to rot. This releases its nutrients into the ground, returning it to the earth and, most importantly, nets you a point token from the pile matching your area. The centre of the board is worth the most, but is usually going to be blocked for all but the largest trees. But even squatting on the valuable spaces is not necessarily the best way to win – after all, you only get those big points when your tree falls. As you can’t do anything on the same space twice – so you can’t force a massive growth spurt from a tree, or immediately fell a mature tree and plant a seed in its place. It’s an interesting waltz between keeping your dominance over other trees around you and letting the logs hit the floor at the right time for points.

This clearing will be swallowed up quickly by an opponent who has, probably, been waiting for their chance to muscle into this prime real estate for a long time. If you’ve planned it well, you might have a well-placed tree felling open up this space with not quite enough time or resources for your opposition to complete the cycle, or for it to be a fools errand.

It’s these little calculations which can win you the games, and provide you with a bit of drama amongst the pretty foliage. Which brings us to the main downside of the game, which is it’s definitely not a chill gardening game. While many of us have a soft spot for this game, the fact you’re blocking one another so often can feel surprisingly ‘take that’. Family players might be put off by what can feel like turns of feeling a bit stupid for not thinking about where the sun was going, or being bullied by a bigger tree.

Other groups however should be prepared to go trunk to trunk with one another in a battle for the best part of the sunlight, furthest from the shade. Plus, for those looking for a little bit extra in the way of crunch, there’s always the Under the Moonlight expansion which adds animal friends into the mix as well as a moon which provides lunar points in a kind of mirror of the light points. These new additions add an additional layer of strategy that brings a little more depth into the world.

For those who are looking for a knife fight in an arboretum, look no further – you’ll be able to see the war for the trees.