Best Board Games

Stop Under the Mango Tree to Click the Garden Lake and Dream of Life in the Rainforest

Stop Under the Mango Tree to Click the Garden Lake and Dream of Life in the Rainforest


by W. Eric Martin

▪️ German publisher <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/40058/skellig-games“>Skellig games is <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skellig-games/click-a-tree?ref=bggforums” target=”_blank” class=”postlink” rel=”nofollow noreferrer noopener”>crowdfunding Click A Tree, a new design from Uwe Rosenberg for release in Q3 2025 in English and German.

Here’s an overview of this 1-4 player game:

In the tile-laying game Click A Tree, players embody Ghanaian farmers. They have adapted to climactic conditions and learned to make use of their surroundings, planting their crops in the shade of trees. In this game, you want to plant trees in a strategic arrangement, deploy your harvest workers skillfully, and reap the most harvest.

To set up, randomly draw nine of fifteen tasks; each player places the matching task strips in the empty spaces at the top of their player board, then places seven fruit markers on level 1 of their board. Each player shuffles their fourteen harvest tiles and reveals two of them. Place the seven fruit markers in a circle, then place a random landscape tile between each pair of markers to form the market. Each tile shows one of six trees, one or two fruit types, and either A, B, or AB. Each player starts with a random landscape tile in front of them.

On a turn, choose a fruit marker on your player board, lower it by one space, then collect the two landscape tiles surrounding this marker in the market. Add these tiles to your board, then choose one of your face-up harvest tiles and add it to your forest. Each sickle on the harvest tile adjacent to a landscape tile earns you one fruit of that type for each tile in that fruit group, e.g., placing a sickle next to avocados in a connected group of four tiles will raise your avocado marker four spaces on your player board.

Except sometimes it won’t. A fruit marker can’t rise to level 2 until you complete a task and remove that strip from your board. To complete a task, you need to arrange trees of the same type in specific configurations, or create a long line of trees, or connect trees with the same letter, or use harvest tiles in defined ways. Whenever you complete a task, you remove that strip, then push all remaining tasks up, giving your fruit markers room to move up.

You also harvest fruit when you place a landscape tile next to a sickle already in play. When all sickles on a harvest have been used, that tile is fulfilled, which lets you lower a number marker on your player board. When enough of your fruit markers move past a number marker — e.g., two past the 2 near the top of the player board, five past the 5, or all seven past the 7 — the game ends at the end of that round. If only one player has triggered the end of the game, they win; if multiple players have, they sum the value of their fruit to determine a winner.



▪️ Czech publisher Albi has a Rosenberg game of its own coming out in 2025, but it’s released minimal info so far about Garden Lake other than its 1-4 player count and this briefing:

Garden Lake offers a relaxing and rewarding experience. Players build their garden lakes with water lilies and koi fish using pentomino tiles. The catch is that on their turn, players always place one tile, but they can earn additional tiles by completing various objectives, which allows them to chain moves and strategize their way to victory.


▪️ For another take on fruit-bearing trees, let’s turn to Under the Mango Tree, a 2-4 player design from Karl Lange and <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/44712/deep-print-games“>Deep Print games that Pegasus Spiele will distribute in Germany and North America:

In this card-drafting game, you stand before a small slice of Australian wilderness that’s entrusted to your care and brimming with potential. Heaps of litter mar the landscape, waiting to be cleared. A once-majestic mango tree yearns to bear fruit again, its branches aching for the playful chatter of animals in its shade.

Your mission is to breathe new life into this patch of nature. On each turn, you and your fellow players simultaneously select a card from your individual hands, then pass the rest to the next player. The twist: Each card you choose has two halves. You tuck one half under your board, removing it from the game, while the other remains visible to score points. This adds a layer of strategy as you must consider not only which halves to use for yourself, but also which to deny your opponents.

When all cards have been played, the player who has created the most vibrant and point-rich ecosystem around their mango tree wins.



▪️ Skipping a bit north of Australia, we land in Indonesia, the setting for HUTAN: Life in the Rainforest from Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pedersen through their own <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/42834/sidekick-games“>Sidekick games company. (“Hutan” is the Indonesian word for “forest”.)

Here’s an overview of this 1-4 player game, which will be co-published with <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/634/the-op-games“>The Op games in the U.S. and with other publishers elsewhere:

In HUTAN, all players have their own rainforest patch where they will plant sprouts and flowers that over time grow into towering trees. When a habitat is created, an iconic forest animal arrives: the orangutan, the sumatran tiger, the rhinoceros hornbill, the cassowary, or the sumatran rhino.

The game plays over nine rounds, and all players have two turns each round. On your turn, you take a flower card from the shared market pool and place the flowers into your rainforest. If you place a flower on top of a matching flower, you grow a tree. When an area is completed with trees, the last tree is replaced by an animal.

At the end of the game, the player who grew the best rainforest and attracted the most animals will score the most points and win.


▪️ Finally, for a more abstract take on building a small-scale ecosystem, we can consider Reiner Knizia roll-and-write game due out in January 2025 from EMF Verlag. Here’s an overview of the 1-6 player game Biotope:

Each turn, one player rolls the dice, then everyone takes their turn at the same time, trying to place the symbols skillfully to create the best ecosystem, while not leaving any gaps along the way. You need to think tactically…and hope for a bit of luck.

Four game scenarios offer variety and extra fun: Will you compete against one another in an exciting competition, or go it alone on the hunt for record points? From tramp to biotope master, who will achieve the highest score?



Clearly we’re viewing this environment through the wrong end of a telescope. So little detail right now…



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