Bloomchasers is a solo, cooperative, and competitive game that was on Kickstarter back in April 2024 .   I backed it (see above) and it delivered May 20th, 2025 to my house!  It originally promised delivery in January 2025, so it was about 5 months late (which is not bad in Kickstarter terms).

This is a hard game to describe; you build branches, buds, and flowers on a 3D tree!  It looks really cool! You can see what it looks like on the back of the box, but we’ll see some real pictures in our runthrough below.

Although there is a competitive mode, we are just focusing on the solo and cooperative modes.  Let’s take a look!

Unboxing

This particular edition has both the base game and expansion built in!  It’s a pretty big box! See the Coke can for perspective above.

It has a lot of little plastic pieces for the trees.

The green pieces (they kinda like of look like broccoli) are the main branches the players put on the tree.

The tree is a giant piece you put the branches into and some flowers!

I mean, the game is unique looking and interesting!

Gameplay

Every turn, players take on branch (“brocolli”) and put it on the tree.

The branches go on the tree in any empty space (or in a space with your bud).

You put buds on the tree, (little circles), trying to certain layouts of your buds.

Before you place a bud, you have to use one of the weather cards which “defines” how you can put a bud on the tree.

During a “bloom” card, you can place flowers on your tree where blooms are!

Your goal is place as many flowers as possible, and you get points based on “the frequency” of the weather cards.  The frequency of weather cards matters because it’s easier and easier to place certain flowers if there are more weather cards.

You’ll notice at the bottom of the weather cards, that if you have flowers already played, you get to play MORE BUDS!

The game looks really great as you try to get as many flowers as you can!

This is really a game about scoring and trying to do better than last time!  (Although, we found the scoring wonky in the solo and co-op)

Rulebook

The rulebook is okay.  The form factor isn’t great; see above as it gets a B- (?) on the Chair Test.

The rules are described adequately, but it does miss several points that are quite important to play.

1. What is considered adjacent?  It turns out adjacency is also a 3D concept!
2. What is considered a bud?  Even after you place a flower on a bud, it is still considered a bud!
3. How do the 3D flowers works?  It is described in the rulebook, but it needed a better pictures.  Everyone I played with always played this wrong the first time

All of these issues are addressed in this BoardGameGeek thread, and later in a thread with a FAQ:  I encourage you to follow up on this thread if you want to play!  Apparently the designer made several rulings on some of these issues during the kickstarter …

It’s a little frustrating that these fundamental issues were not addressed in the rulebook. But at least there is an avenue (BGG) to address the issues.

Dexterity Game

I played the game with two sets of friends; my first set of friends are “less dextrous” then myself, and they called this a dexterity game!  Many times, when trying to place buds, they would nudge the tree and cause buds to fall off.  It happened enough times that they declared, partly in jest, but partly in truth, that there is a little bit of dexterity element to the game!

The table we played on “may” have had something to do with that.   It was a little soft, and the table was quite large, which means we had to lean across a little more.

On the other hand, my other set of friends and I played on a harder CostCo table (see above) which was more stable and we were all “closer” together.  Although we didn’t struggle with the dexterity aspect as much, looking back on the games, we still had a few “knocking buds off” incidents.

I think the moral of the story; play on a harder table, try to keep your group close, and recognize there is a dexterity element to the game which may or may not affect your enjoyment of the game.

Randomness and Strategy

The game has some strategy, as your choices matter about how you place your buds.  But, when the Blight cards come out (which are the “bad news” branches) and when the Bloom cards come out (“good news”) are a little random; even after two Bloom cards come out, they get shuffled back in!  So you may get Blooms or Blights at the wrong time!

I personally think this extra randomness takes the pressure off the game.  If this game has far less randomness (if you could see which weather cards were coming,  if you could see which branches were coming,  if you have more foreknowledge when the blooms happened), I think the game would take on a different character as people would try very hard to plan things out.  But because there really is quite a bit of randomness, the game is more chill: “Eh, you get what you get and don’t have a fit”.    It’s weird to say this, but I think the randomness (which I usually don’t love) coupled with the theme, makes this a more enjoyable game.

The Joy

The Joy in this game is building a tree with flowers.  There are choices, which make you feel involved (which Weather card do you use? Where do you place a branch? Where do you place a bud?  What am I hoping for?), but because the Blooms and Blights and Weather cards are “fairly” random, you don’t feel like you “have” to optimize this game within an inch of its life.

Conclusion

My niece has a saying that she frequently quotes to her sister: “You get what you get, and don’t have a fit.”  And I think that encapsulates my feelings of this game.  It’s a cozy game where the joy is in building a beautiful tree with flowers.  Do you have choices and feel like they make a difference?  Yes, you can help your friends with your choices, you can set up your flowers, you can place buds strategically.  But because you know there is some randomness to the game, you don’t stress about your choices as much; “You get what you get, and don’t have a fit”.  I freely admit that the fun of building the 3D tree and the flower theme help that cozy feel.

Be aware that there may be a little bit of a dexterity element to this game, and that you should really consult BoardGameGeek to make sure you get rules clarified.  But otherwise, I liked this game and will keep it! 7/10.