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Blossoms is the creation of Przemysław Fornal, Kajetan Kusina, Mateusz Pitulski, and Kamil Rogowski, which might seem odd once you learn about the straightforward nature of this simple game, but the rules have an explanation for why four people are credited: "The game was created during cyclical boardgame designers workshops — Laboratorium Gier — organised by Rebelatorium, the research and development department of Rebel", Rebel being the game's publisher. Sounds like an interesting experience!
In Blossoms, you compete against one opponent to collect large groups of flowers and a wide selection of blooms. You start with two cards in hand and a different type of flower in each of the four pots. On a turn, you must grow, flipping over the top card of the deck and adding that flower to a pot that already contains it or to an empty pot. If you can't do this, you bust and your turn ends.
Once you grow, you can grow again, plant a card from your hand in a pot, cut a flower that consists of at least two cards (collecting that flower and ending your turn), pass to end your turn immediately, or use a special action on one of the pots. When you do this, you reserve that pot, meaning that the opponent can't cut this flower on their next turn, and you take the action, which might be drawing a card, adding a card from your hand to the bottom of a flower (meaning that it doesn't have to match), protecting yourself from a growth bust, or arranging the top three cards of the deck as you wish.
You keep growing, planting and cutting until the deck runs out, then you score, collecting more points for larger bunches of flowers and a wider variety of blooms. I've played three times on that review copy, and the game flies by, often ending before both players have used their three special action tokens — so we're certainly not doing as well as we could since we're giving up the ability to look ahead or grow without risk. We're not calculating our plays, though. I can imagine some players would count cards more to play the odds on this action or that, but the game also allows you to tread lightly and spend a few minutes enjoying the beauty of the cards, while frowning at the capriciousness of nature after another failed growth. Maybe I should be just a tad more calculating...
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