Verdant Arizona – Cactus Arranging

You’re working on the best cactus display in Arizona. But somehow, you and your biggest competitor have both gotten stuck having to share the same truck. Pick cacti samples while you drive around the market, then create the best arrangement at home!

Verdant Arizona is a game for two players by Robin David. It’s published by Galen’s Games as part of their mint tin line. That’s right, the entire game is packed into a tiny tin that you can put in your pocket. It’s best for ages 10+ and a full game takes 15-30 minutes.

How to Play

Set up a face-up grid of nine cactus cards and put a wren token on any card that shows a nest. Choose a first player: the other player puts the truck anywhere on the “lines” of the grid. Then the first player takes their turn.

Start your turn by moving the truck up to two spaces. You can turn at a right angle as part of a movement, or you can turn around in place for one space of movement. You are allowed to travel around the outside edges of the grid as well as the interior.

After moving the truck, pick up one face-up card that is adjacent to it. Replace that card with a face-down card from the deck.

Add the cactus card you chose to your collection. You’ll be forming a 4×4 grid by the end of the game. When you add a card, it must be face-up and adjacent to at least one other card.

If a player cannot reach a face-up card with the truck in two movements, it’s time to update the market grid. Add a cactus wren to any cards that are still face-up, then flip over all the face-down cards. Add a wren to any newly face-up cards that have a nest. Then the current player may take their turn, moving up to two spaces and taking a card.

Cactus Wrens

The cactus wren token has two uses: driving the truck farther, or swapping two of your cards. Discard one wren token to move an additional space with the truck, if two moves aren’t quite enough. You can spend multiple tokens to move even farther.

Or, if you’ve got some cards in the wrong places (more on that in scoring), you can discard two wren tokens to swap two cards. This means you might be able to put a card in the strategically wrong place in your grid, because if you swap it with another card in your grid, they both end up in the right place.

End Game and Scoring

Verdant Arizona ends when both players have filled their 4×4 grid. Then, it’s time to score.

• Score one point for each row or column that has numbers in ascending or descending order. The numbers don’t have to be sequential.
• Score one additional point for each gecko in in a row or column that scores. That means each gecko could be worth as many as two points.
• Score two points for each of the four quadrants of your 4×4 grid that contain only a single color, even if the numbers are out of order.

Whoever has the most points, wins! If there’s a tie, the player with more wren tokens wins.

Impressions

The core gameplay of Verdant Arizona reminds us of games like Lucky Numbers, with the same 4×4 grid and a similar draft-and-place mechanic. But Verdant Arizona adds complexity with the truck movement and the additional scoring of geckos and color quadrants. This makes it a far more strategic game and a lot less luck-dependent. Lucky Numbers is also a race, whereas Verdant Arizona is simply a strategic puzzle that forces you to place a card every turn.

The primary tension in Verdant Arizona comes from this reality. You can’t pass on a turn, so often you find yourself needing to plan out your card choices a turn or two in advance, because you need to consider what your opponent is doing. You might take a less-than-ideal card to force your opponent into a corner. Or you might realize that a card you really want is one your opponent doesn’t, and postpone taking that until a later turn.

Then again, you might plan to swap a card to a better spot later – but you can’t guarantee you’ll get the wren tokens to make that happen. Choose wisely!

No Partner? No Problem.

There’s also a solo mode, if you want to test your tactical thinking. “Vera”, your artificial opponent, is trying to collect as many cards of a single color as possible. They are limited by movement around the grid the same way you are, and you’ll need to carefully shape your own movement to limit their choices.

“Vera” will score at least 7 points, but could go as high as 13. So try to balance the colors they collect, while building up your own grid to maximize your points!

Small and Fast

Verdant Arizona is a lot of game in a small package. In play, it takes up a decent amount of table space, and none of the components feel undersized.

Verdant Arizona only takes about 20 minutes to play. Even though the tension can create some frustrating moments, the speed of the game and the lack of direct conflict make it a great game for a date, or for casual play with a friend.

Especially given its portability and ease of setup, I think we’ll be taking Verdant Arizona out for a spin fairly frequently. Just look out for those spines! Ouch!

You can pick up Verdant Arizona directly from Galen’s Games, on Amazon, or ask for it at your friendly local game store.

---

The Family Gamers received the games in Mint Tin Series 1, including Verdant Arizona, from Galen’s Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.