Farmageddon
2-4
8+
30+
Welcome to the world of competitive farming! Plant and harvest crops such as Sassy Wheat or Wary Squash for big bucks while keeping an eye out for nasty cards like Dustbowl and the Thresher...
The player to earn the most money from planting and harvesting crops is the best farmer, and the winner of Farmageddon!
User Reviews (3)
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I just want to get out of the way that this is a very biased review. I designed Farmageddon. As such, it’s not really appropriate for me to rate this game (I won’t) or be critical of it. I will, however, try to provide more information on the game.
Farmageddon is fundamentally a game about risk taking and hand management. It is a game designed for casual gamers, family gamers, and younger players. Ultimately, it’s a filler, a game designed to be played over lunch or after Thanksgiving dinner with your family. Or, perhaps in the interim while you’re waiting for a friend to setup Eclipse.
You win the game by having the most valuable harvest. On your turn you can plant Crop cards in the three planting fields. These are shared by all players, so if the field is occupied, you can’t use it! (Controlling the fields is a subtle strategy). Crop cards can be used to Plant OR you can use them (face down) as fertilizer. Every plant requires a certain amount of fertilizer before it can be harvested. Once harvested, you place it in your harvest pile where it adds to your final score.
Two twists! You cannot harvest a crop the turn it’s planted. This means it must make it around (or you must use Action cards to disrupt things). Secondly, you must fertilize once each turn if able. This keeps the game moving and forces you to take risk.
On top of this, players may play up to 2 Action cards every turn. There are 12 Action cards total (in a deck of 45) and players draw 2 automatically at the END of every turn. All Action cards are powerful and you should always use them. Action cards let you protect yourself, steal from others, destroy crops to clear fields, increase or decrease the value, and more. You will always have a choice to make on what to do with your cards. The small combos and opportunistic are what make the game interesting and strategic.
There is luck involved and the game is definitely light. BUT, the better players tend to win and typically due to managing their crop supply and timing their Action cards well.
As a side note, the art is amazing. It was done by Brett Bean and Erin Fusco and they did a killer job. Thanks for reading, I hope this helps!
Farmageddon is frenetic, fast paced, and fun. The game moves really fast – you pretty much always have access to enough Crop cards to harvest a crop the turn after you plant it. But if you don’t, it will certainly get stolen or destroyed or attacked in some way – that’s the nature of the game, and it will happen even if you harvest as fast as possible. Fortunately, the fast-paced nature removes what could be frustration when your crops constantly get stolen or destroyed – you can easily plant new crops, or just steal and sabotage other player’s crops. You’re never out of the game, and the action cards are varied enough that you will be able to do something to help yourself or hurt others.
There isn’t a whole lot of depth here – but the game isn’t going for that. It’s best when played quickly – if you spend too much time plotting your strategy, you will likely get frustrated when it gets completely foiled. However it’s not a mindless game – you feel like your choices matter, and there are different ways to play cards depending on what you think might happen. Cards interact in zany ways that are funny and make the game spark with laughter a little.
There is definitely a lot of opportunity for spite here. Some cards definitely hurt everyone, but most target a single player – and it can be easy to really target someone, especially if you’re the leader. Of course, being the leader also makes you a target, so it goes both ways. As long as no one playing is too sensitive, all the attacking happens on equal, open ground.
If there’s one flaw in the game, it’s that it is vulnerable to outside conditions. Allow me to explain; in many board games, if one player is really bad (inexperience, lack of strategy, whatever), the poor experience is usually contained to that person. They may unknowingly give an advantage to another player or something like that, but otherwise it doesn’t necessarily skew the experience. But in Farmageddon if one player is bad, it can completely deride the experience. The balance rides on players continuing to do things that make sense – stealing other player’s crops and then harvesting them, destroying Crops to free up a planting field and then planting a crop in that field, etc. But I had a game where one player would just destroy all the crops with a dust bowl… and then pass his turn. Sure it freed up planting fields for the next player… but then that player couldn’t play any of his attack cards since there were no other crops out there. So he would plant his crops, then the next player would destroy or steal them, then the next player plants another crop, then back to that first player and… BAM! Another dust bowl. For several turns this happened and no one could harvest anything, and it wasn’t a winning strategy for the dust-bowler, by the way.
Another issue that arose from this is that, because we couldn’t play our action cards, our hands grew and grew while the action deck shrunk and shrunk. By the end of the game the action deck was so small, the 3 Dust Bowls just kept coming up over and over again. It made for a somewhat frustrating experience.
But still – that was due to player inexperience. One would hope that after a few plays, everyone would learn the basic strategies and things would balance themselves out. When they are balanced, it’s quite a blast. [side note – shuffle your decks well. A poorly shuffled deck can also result in a similar effect at least for a while.]
When played the way it was meant to be played, Farmageddon is a hilarious, action-packed experience that is a whole lot of fun. Even when imbalances arise, the game only lasts about 30 minutes, so you can try again and hopefully everyone has learned from their mistakes. The art on the cards is brilliant and delightful. The theme is fun and well-implemented.
We’ve been having a great time with Farmageddon. It’s become our new ice-breaker on game night.
The premise is simple – plant and grow your crops, then harvest them for points. Meanwhile, you’ll be sabotaging your neighbors’ farms with Gophers, Genetic Superworms and Foreclosures. Of course, they’ll be doing the same to you.
Play is quick, but not rushed. I like a game we can talk over.
The cards are balanced. I like that they are multipurpose as well, so you’ll always have something to do during your turn. I also like the high level of player interaction. Three players seems to be the sweet spot.
The game is well-produced, with very clever art. I highly recommend it.