Bloom

About this board game

Bloom is a garden-building board game for 2–5 players, with plays lasting about 60 minutes. Gardeners cultivate flowers, harvest them into beautiful bouquets, and protect their fields from unwelcome harvesting.

Each player has nine field tiles, with every tile measuring three parcels by three parcels. Each parcel can be cultivated with its matching flower or left plowed, creating a personal garden made up of carefully arranged spaces.

The central challenge is limited specialization: each gardener can afford the space to plant only one type of flower. To gather the flowers needed for bouquets, players may harvest from their own parcels or venture into neighboring gardens. That opportunity comes with a cost, since every gardener must also defend their own fields.

Flowers are harvested by placing your field tiles over parcels on your garden or another player’s garden. The tiles are placed partially overlapping the existing field tiles, making spatial placement an important part of how gardens develop and how flowers are covered.

• Players: 2–5
• Playing time: approximately 60 minutes
• Garden components: nine 3-by-3 field tiles per player
• Key tension: harvest from neighboring fields while guarding your own

Every gardener also has an animal companion to help defend the garden’s fields. In Bloom, arranging tiles, seeking flowers, and protecting your cultivated spaces are closely connected, creating a contest between beautiful bouquets and defensive gardening.

Originally known as La Bonne Soupe, Bloom was the winner of the 2006 Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société. The game was released in 2008.