Tang Garden | Rahdo's Final Thoughts

[@ilqrd.6608]

I hope the expansions become available for sale at some point! Thanks Rahdo. Can’t wait to play on a lazy Sunday

[@Carsten_de_1981]

We love this game! We do like it way better than Carcassonne. Gorgeous, entertaining get away game. :)

[@stephenspackman5573]

Not only is this the most beautiful game I own, it's unique in that I actually feel proud to have backed it on Kickstarter. I'm not sure how that works, I'm not sure it even makes any sense, but there it is. I love this game. And … suddenly my wife has taken an interest in my hobby! And it reminds me so much of China.

[@Guiltygear008]

They should instead of only colors and small icons inside them have used a different icon altogether. Circle, square, star , triangle etc... but it still looks damn gorgeous.

[@lizzirountree93]

Love your channel, love your energy and love your honesty, including your willingness to touch on political and social themes that are so critical in our current time!

[@happiness7474]

I agree! Thankyou for the variant and for discussing it with the publisher! That was the only frustrating part my wife had in the whole game! Its a wonderful game and now with the decoration showcase which i will be using! Should make the game even better! Thankyou @rahdo

[@rahdo]

sure thing. the variant rules are now posted on the official website, btw: thundergryph.com/tang-garden/ :)

[@happiness7474]

yay!!

[@eckhardheym7425]

Hey Rahdo, great that you show this game on your channel. Your opinion has a huge impact to other people (including me BTW) and I think that game deserves more publicity because I really love it. Sure it's on the light side and a kind of point salad but I don't want to play heavy strategic all the time. And at some point for me it's a kind of thematic that you sit there and play ying-yang style, get a point here and there watching the garden grow. The issues with the decoration cards bothered me not very much I always make sure to have a opportunity to place every decoration before I get to them. Finally a great review of you as always and I am glad to have this game already so that I don't have to spend money again after watching your channel!!! 😉

[@sanderschippers2708]

Such a nice looking game and not even bad also. Only minor thing is the tiny icons on decorations. also little hard to keep track what other players are scoring with there character. Specialy with 4 players.

[@aaronegerman2485]

Just got this a couple weeks ago, I had all the very same complaints! They chose way too many shades or orange for the characters, I'm not color blind and I can barely tell them apart. I also had some issues with most of my landscape tales peeling at the edges pretty much right out of the box. Not sure if thats a defect or if many people have the same problem, but I'm going to definitely have to do some home repairs on those soon before they get any worse. I also almost broken one of the tree pieces just trying to put it together which was very frustrating. But of course you can't deny how beautiful it all is! Worth the money just to have a pretty toy to show off, I enjoy the game too despite how light it is.

[@BoardGameGran]

I'm still waiting on this thru Kickstarter. A friend and I got two and they haven't delivered it yet. So frustrating. It looks gorgeous. Hoping we'll actually get it as my friend said they're ignoring his messages :(

[@1981dardar]

Decoration display variant seems to weaken merchant ability as their ability is to pay coin to draw more decoration card or something. Well.. not all plans are perfect.

[@TheWisestofGuys]

I thought the "bad luck" you speak about is really just choosing a right time to take that action. If there are only spaced for trees/birds/flowers... and none else. You are choosing a bad time to look at decorations.

[@rahdo]

indeed. i didn't make that clear enough, but yeah, it's risky to decorate when there's only a couple of options, but it's rare that all the options are available, so we found that even if you do everything "right" (time it so you get to draw 3 or 4 cards, and there are multiple options) you can still get burned... in a huge way because you waste a turn, or in a smaller way because you get bonus points for specific decorations, but you repeatedly never find them.

[@TheWisestofGuys]

@@rahdo Yah that is fair. Finding that elusive lilly can be very hard haha. You also can stall the game out though by repeatedly taking decoration actions even if it means looking at 2-3 cards as you don't remove landscape tokens or deplete landscape tiles

[@rahdo]

@@TheWisestofGuys remember, after doing decorations, any facedown landscape tiles get flipped face up :)

[@Trogdor_Strongbraid]

Mr. Ham, you have been playing games too long if you believe this is lighter than Carcassonne. I've been deep in the hobby for 4 years but this game is intimidating to learn with all the different parts. There are more options you need to be aware of during TG than core Carcassonne. I'd even say it could be a medium-light weight game. Also, this was a great run through! You've encouraged me to take a stab at also doing a two-handed play when able. I have it all but the Herbalist or something. Thanks, good work, and keep doing you!

[@rahdo]

well, i agree with you, and i guess i wasn't quite clear enough in the video. i just checked, and it looks like i said "it's almost, at least at first blush, more lightweight than carcassonne", by which i meant it was deceptively deep, and then i go on to explain how :) i later on say "kind of the in realm of a carcassone, but the wrinkle is..." which again is me trying to indicate that it looks really simple, but surprises you with the extra depth :)

[@darren.mcauliffe]

What's the game behind you to the left of Islebound? And have you done a run-through for all the games we can see there?

[@santiagodearana1545]

www.boardgamegeek.com/video/237624/masters-renaissance-lorenzo-il-magnifico-card-game/rahdo-runs-down-masters-renaissance

[@rahdo]

well spotted santiago! :)

[@Guajaqlxd]

I cant find the variants anywhere, not even in bgg or the official site

[@rahdo]

oh wow, it looks like their website has changed quite a bit! i'll write the publisher and ask!

[@Guajaqlxd]

@@rahdo thank you rahdo

[@JosephFlemming]

Yes I like the game but had many complaints. Mini disk bases are atrociously colored with many almost the same color. Icons are too decorative and hard to read. Rulebook was confusing. Did not come with a player aid. Coins were rather dull compared to the Kickstarter page images. It’s sometimes hard to see there the minis are looking. I’d rather have standees.

[@rahdo]

i'm a standee fan too! would have been nice to at least have the option :)

[@wl5609]

This game looks great, right up our alley!

[@stevenvanheuverzwijn596]

You mention a variant for the decorations. Where did you find this and where can I find this info?

[@rahdo]

they devs haven't released it yet, they're still doing testing of it. i expect they'll announce it soon. in the meantime, here's what they sent me that we tried, but bear in mind it's not "official" yet: _Decorations showcase_ Setup: Draw two decoration cards and place them face up to create the decoration showcase. Gameplay: - When a player decides to "place a decoration", instead of performing the normal action, they may choose a decoration from the showcase by paying 1 coin. - If a player performs a normal "place a decoration" action by drawing cards, instead of discarding the remaining cards, place one in the decoration showcase and discard the remaining cards, if any. - Once the decoration showcase reaches 6 cards, discard all the cards and draw two new decoration cards to form a new decoration showcase. - As an optional action, during their turn, a player can pay 2 coins to shuffle the discard pile back in the draw deck. Note: The lantern to place two decorations cannot be used to take cards from the showcase.

[@stevenvanheuverzwijn596]

@@rahdo thank you so much for this info. Sounds very promising.

[@Daniel199423]

@@stevenvanheuverzwijn596 It's listed on the publisher's website too: thundergryph.com/tang-garden/

[@rahdo]

oh wow, i didnt' know that, thanks for the heads up... will add the link to my shownotes! :)

[@thorphin]

I was trying to watch this video on mute, but noticed that there's something bizarre with the captions. There's only Russian auto-generated. Can you improve its accessibility and investigate and at least reactivate English auto-generated?

[@rahdo]

you're right, this is very strange, i have no idea why this is happening. i just deleted the garbled russian auto-generation, and maybe that will prompt youtube to auto create english, but i don't know. i don't have any real control over the system :(

[@shezzy153]

This was one of the most frustrating games I played recently. For the amount of strategic depth, it overstays its welcome. Confusing symbology, luck-based swings, constant need to look at the descriptions of character cards or special tiles, style over accessibility and so on. Took us two hours for the game, and felt like we played a filler. I wish the gameplay matched the presentation!

[@hudeduge9240]

fully agree. Inelegant and not open to non-gamers. The lantern powers too feel like designer get out jail free abilities and less so an interesting usurping of the rules.

[@darren.mcauliffe]

I wouldn't call this gateway. There's too much going on.

[@hudeduge9240]

Yeah, the rules were so needlessly convoluted and required a lot of memorisation of fringe cases. I sold this pretty fast after receiving it from KS.

[@Valcurdra]

This game stinks imo, one of the worst gaming experiences I had this year. You identified the flaws perfectly, they just bothered me a lot though. Looks good, but it's not functional, your constantly checking these tiny symbols on a cluttered board. Very low decision space even for a light game. Your just a victim each turn of what tiles happen available or alternatively a random card draw, as the game progresses you tend to narrow your focus so you really need to get certain things and just can't have any control. Them there is this wierd highly strategic element of picking you hero/leader whatever they are called that can cause massive AP and has no place in a light game. Sorry this one is just a mess.