Cultivate! - A Community Garden Board Game

Overview

Cultivate! is a strategic board game that combines the classic sowing mechanics of Mancala with modern worker placement and engine building. Players take on roles in a community garden, planting seeds, growing relationships, and working together to create a thriving shared space across four seasons.

🎮 Try Playable Demo

Experience the basic Mancala mechanics that drive the game

Theme

Players are neighbors collaborating on a community garden. Each has a unique role and perspective, but everyone works toward both personal goals and shared community objectives. The game captures the rhythm of gardening through seasons - planting in spring, tending through summer and fall, then celebrating the harvest in winter.

Components

Seeds

200 3D-printed seeds in 5 player colors (40 per player)

Seeds represent both movement tokens for Mancala sowing and investment in relationships/goals

Seed Cards

Seed cards (half-card size) placed horizontally on marked spaces

When landing on a store, you may take an adjacent seed card and add it to any plot with an open space

Role Cards

6 Role cards with unique powers and goals

Each role provides special abilities and scoring opportunities

Plant Cards

Plant cards (half-card size)

Representing different crops, flowers, and garden plants

Plot Cards

12 Plot cards (full-card size)

Each holds up to 2 Plant cards

Other Components

Seed bag for drawing refills
Seasonal markers
Player reference cards
Scoring tokens

Game Board Layout

Board Features

12 Pits: Traditional Mancala layout for seed sowing
12 Plot Spaces: Adjacent to each pit, holds up to 2 Plant cards
2 Store Spaces: For purchasing plants and accessing seed cards
6 Seed Card Spaces: 3 adjacent to each store (placed off-board), containing half-sized seed cards
Seasonal Track: Marks game progression through Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter

Core Player Roles

The Cook

Goal: Score bonus points for culinary combinations

Power: "Herb Garden" - Score extra points when 3 herbs are planted in orthogonally adjacent plots

Community Benefit: When Cook achieves their goal, all players gain access to "Harvest Feast" scoring

The Florist

Goal: Create beautiful flower arrangements and aesthetic combinations

Power: "Color Harmony" - Score bonuses for matching flower colors in adjacent plots

Community Benefit: Completed arrangements provide beauty bonuses to neighboring plots

The Prepper

Goal: Focus on practical, storage-friendly crops for community resilience

Power: "Root Cellar" - Can store extra seeds and gain bonus resources

Community Benefit: Successful preservation efforts give all players emergency seed reserves

The Researcher

Goal: Experiment with plant varieties and document garden success

Power: "Scientific Method" - Can examine upcoming plants or gain information advantages

Community Benefit: Research discoveries unlock new plant varieties for everyone

The Hobbyist

Goal: Try diverse gardening approaches and support community efforts

Power: "Green Thumb" - Flexible abilities and bonuses for variety

Community Benefit: Enthusiasm spreads - other players gain bonus actions when helping Hobbyist goals

The Activist

Goal: Build community engagement and ensure equitable garden access

Power: "Community Organizer" - Gains bonuses for collaborative achievements

Community Benefit: Organizing efforts create shared scoring opportunities for all players

New Roles Expansion

These new roles expand the community garden experience with advanced mechanics and deeper collaboration

The Master Gardener

Goal: Achieve excellence in traditional gardening techniques and mentor others

Power: "Wisdom of Experience" - Can enhance any plant placement with bonus effects

Community Benefit: Teaching moments - when Master Gardener helps others' goals, those players gain permanent bonuses

Advanced Mechanic: Can "tutor" other players, giving them one-time use of Master Gardener abilities

The Seed Librarian

Goal: Collect and preserve diverse plant genetics for future generations

Power: "Genetic Archive" - Can store plant cards for later use and trade seeds between players

Community Benefit: Seed exchanges - all players can trade plant cards through the Librarian

Advanced Mechanic: Maintains a "seed bank" that other players can access for rare varieties

The Compost Coordinator

Goal: Manage garden waste and soil health for optimal growing conditions

Power: "Nutrient Cycling" - Can convert failed plantings into bonuses for future plants

Community Benefit: Soil improvement - plots developed by Compost Coordinator provide bonuses to adjacent spaces

Advanced Mechanic: Can "recycle" plant cards that don't work out, turning them into soil improvement tokens

Integration Guidelines

When to Add These Roles

Add Master Gardener when your group wants more collaborative gameplay and mentoring mechanics. Perfect for mixed experience groups.
Add Seed Librarian when you want more trading and resource management depth. Great for players who enjoy economic interactions.
Add Compost Coordinator for maximum complexity and interconnected systems. Best for experienced groups who want deep strategic interactions.

Complexity Scaling

These roles add Advanced complexity compared to the core six roles:

More intricate timing decisions
Greater player interaction requirements
Additional resource management systems
Long-term strategic planning elements

Role Synergies

High Synergy Combinations

Master Gardener + Any Role: Natural mentoring relationships
Seed Librarian + Researcher: Scientific preservation partnership
Compost Coordinator + Activist: Community infrastructure building

Strategic Interactions

Master Gardener creates teaching opportunities that benefit multiple players
Seed Librarian becomes a hub for plant card trading and rare variety access
Compost Coordinator turns setbacks into advantages while improving the garden for everyone

Card Examples

Complete Rules

Setup

Each player chooses or is randomly assigned one of 6 available roles
Unused roles are placed near the board as Community Goals
Draw seeds randomly from the bag to fill each of the 12 pits with 3-4 seeds
Players keep their remaining seeds (about 16-21 each) off the board
Place initial Plant cards face-up near the stores as the plant market

Game Structure

The game progresses through 4 seasons:

Spring Summer Fall Winter

Active Seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall)

Players take turns using Mancala sowing mechanics
Season ends when players choose to score or run low on seeds
All players retrieve their seeds from goals/plots and refill pits

Winter (Final Season)

Each player gets one free activation at any location
Winter-marked goals score for final points
Game ends with final scoring

Turn Sequence

Choose a Pit: Select any pit containing seeds (regardless of color)
Sow Seeds: Pick up all seeds and distribute clockwise, one per space. You choose which seed to drop in each pit as you sow.
Activate Final Location: Take action based on where last seed lands:
- Plot Spaces: Cultivate the plot OR plant a card
- Store Spaces: Purchase plants OR take a seed card from the adjacent spaces and place it in any plot with an open space
- Role Goal Spaces: Cultivate relationships for scoring