Farmageddon Review

Farmageddon is a quick little card game about planting crops and harvesting them for money. I picked up this game by backing it from Kickstarter because it looked like a fun little filler game and had a good price point. For the most part, I was spot on with my estimate. You can get in a game of Farmageddon in about 20 to 30 minutes and supports 2-4 players. The rules are only a page or two long and it doesn’t take very long to learn. I have played a couple games of Farmageddon now (it helps that it’s so quick a play) and found it to be enjoyable, if not the most deep of game play.

Game Overview:

Farmageddon is a card game where you are trying to plant high value crops and “harvest” them into your score pile. The game has 2 sets of cards, action cards and crop cards. Crop cards each have a point value on them that score points when harvested. The action cards are a set of cards in your hand that you use to alter the game play. They common things like attack your opponents crops or give your own crops a boost. You take turns drawing and playing cards until the game ends when the last crop card is drawn. After that, you count up your points and the one with the most is the winner.

Components:

As with most card games, there aren’t a whole lot to the components. Usually with card games, the main thing you can talk about is the quality of the card stock and the artwork. I’m happy to say that with Farmageddon both are great. I was originally attracted to this game because of the artwork. It’s a little cartoony, but I like the style and feel that it works well for the game’s theme. I also had no issues with the card stock. I think it will hold up fine after repeated plays.

How to Play:

As I said earlier, the game play is quite simple. There are only 3 planting fields in the game, so if you are playing with 4 players, someone will always be the odd man out. Planting fields are what you use to play your crop cards. On your turn, your action choices are:
 • Plant a crop
 • Fertilize a crop
 • Play an action card
 • Harvest a crop
To plant a crop, you take a crop card from your hand and play it on an open field card. If there is no open card, then you can’t plant. To fertilize, you take one of the crop cards in your hand and play it face down on a previously planted crop. This is where a bit of hand management comes into play. You want to plant the high value crops, but you have to fertilize as well. Sometimes you will have to waste a good crop as fertilizer.
You also have the option to play up to two action cards from your hand. They will do things like attack your opponents, protect your crops and other similar actions you might expect in this type of game.
To harvest a crop, it just has to have the required number of fertilizer cards on it and you must have waited a full turn. After that, you discard the fertilizer cards and take the crop card into your score pile.
And that’s the game in a nut shell. Very easy to learn and quick game play.

Game Experience:

I have played both a two player game and a four player game of Farmageddon. While the game plays fine with 2 players, I think it’s a better game with 4. In a four player game, you must contend with the fact that there are only 3 planting fields. So on any given turn, someone won’t be able to plant. This causes the game to be a lot more cutthroat then the 2-3 player variety. I think this helps the game be more interactive, which is a good thing.

In Farmageddon, there is also minimal down time. That’s a great thing for a filler game. There is nothing worse than a game that should only be 25 minutes taking an hour because of bad mechanics or poor rules. (I’m looking at you Munchkin)!

While Farmageddon does a lot of things right, it could use a bit more variety. The game play can get a bit repetitive over repeated plays and I think this game could really use an expansion. That said, it still works well as a quick game. I should warn that the game is almost too easy as a 2 player game as there is almost no competition over the farm plots. With 4 players there will always be someone sitting out in the cold, not so with two to three players.

Overall, Farmageddon is a quirky little game that will appeal to a lot of casual gamers. There is not a lot of deep strategy to be had, but the game play is nice and simple. I also think the theme was an interesting idea and works well with the game overall. Since the game is so easy to learn, it makes it a great game to pull out with your non-gamer friends. They should have no trouble picking this one up.

Final Thoughts:

I liked Farmageddon even though I don’t think it will ever make it’s way to my “must play list”. However, it does make a solid filler game. Being only a 20-30 minute play time, it’s never going to fill a game night but it’s a nice game to play for a break or while waiting for other players to show up.

The cards are a nice quality and, as I said before, the artwork is really well done. So, while not my favorite choice for a filler game, it’s still a good one. And coming in at a $15 price point, it’s an easy impulse buy. If you are a card game fan looking for something new to add to your collection, I’d recommend giving Farmageddon a try.

If you are interested in getting a copy for yourself, it’s about $15

Final Score: 2.5 Stars – Fun little filler game with some great artwork.

Hits:
• Low Price Point
• Clever Gameplay
• Quick Play Time
• Great Artwork

Misses
• Doesn’t play as well with 2 as with more players.
• Could use a bit more card variety with the crops.