Floristry Review

How do you feel about app-assisted board games? I'm pretty neutral on them. Only a handful of times have I seen a companion app so good that I considered it essential (one example being The Search for Planet X). And when I first saw Floristry, I knew that I'd found another like that.

Floristry is a two-player game with a real-time Dutch auction as its central mechanism, and the companion app (which is really just a website) is the referee/auctioneer who keeps you honest. What's a Dutch auction? An auction that starts at a high price and slowly goes down until someone makes a bid, who then wins the thing being auctioned.

But how does it play? Is it a good implementation? Is it a worthwhile two-player game to add to your collection? Here's how my experiences went with Floristry and what you need to know to decide if you'll like it.

This review is based on my own personal copy of Floristry, which I bought new from UP Games with comped shipping. Not a free review copy.

Overview

Floristry is a two-player tile placement that uses a Dutch auction to decide who gets what tiles every round. You place your acquired tiles in your own personal grid to create groupings of different flower types, all while trying not to spend too much in acquiring those tiles.

The tiles in Floristry are like dominoes—rectangular in shape and split into two halves—except with flowers instead of pips. These flowers come in six different types (Tulips, Roses, Mums, Daisies, Hydrangeas, and Lilies) and the goal is to create large groupings of each flower type. Only the largest grouping of each flower type gets scored at the end.

Each player starts with a random tile in the center of their grid. From then on, when new tiles are added, they must be placed adjacent to an already-placed tile. (That means edge-to-edge. Diagonals are invalid.)

Also, your grid must remain within the bounds of your frame. You can slide your frame around as your grid grows, but once your grid reaches the size of your frame, you can't move it around anymore. This gives you flexibility in how your arrangement progresses while keeping its overall size constrained.

So, how do you acquire tiles? That's where the Dutch auction comes into play. Both players start with $30 to spend across all auctions.

Every round is its own separate auction. Four random tiles are drawn from the bag and placed on the table between both players. Whoever wins the auction gets to choose and take three of the four tiles for their grid, while the other player takes the remaining one.

The auction itself is run by the Floristry web app on your phone. Both players touch the phone when they're ready, which begins the countdown. Auctions start at $5 and go down by $1 every 3 seconds. Tap at any time to win the auction for the current price. First come, first served!

Floristry plays over 10 rounds, then you score the largest grouping for each of the six flower types. What's interesting is that you don't get points per flower—a grouping has to reach certain thresholds to unlock the next scoring tier. For example, a grouping of 3–5 flowers earns 1 point, 6–8 flowers earns 3 points, 9–11 flowers earns 6 points, and 12+ flowers earns 10 points.

The game comes with a nifty scoring easel to reference during play, showing how many points you can earn at a glance. You don't have to memorize it.

On top of that, whoever has more unspent money gains bonus points for the difference in money between players. If you outspend your opponent to win more auctions and tiles, this catch-up mechanism means they can still end up ahead of you if you're too reckless with your spending.

And that's it. Whoever scores the most points wins!

Setup and Table Footprint

Floristry is super fast to set up. You just pull out one frame for each player, one cat scoring meeple for each player, and the bag full of tiles. Then, launch the companion web page (which you can save as a shortcut on your phone's home screen for quick access) and you're good to go. Total of 1 minute.

Floristry's table footprint is equally compact. For each player, the frame is all the space you need. Then you just need a small side area for your phone (which runs the auction) and the four tiles being auctioned. You can play this almost anywhere, as long as the surface is sturdy.

Learning Curve

Floristry is dead simple to learn with its minimal rules overhead. You pull out some tiles, run the auction, place your tiles, and repeat. The tile placement rules are as intuitive as it gets, as are the scoring rules. Apart from the Dutch auction, there's nothing here that will scare away a non-gamer. Anyone can learn and play this within minutes.

And what's even better is, the app has a built-in walkthrough that guides you through it all in a clear, concise, non-overwhelming way. It comes with a rulebook, but you probably won't ever need to read it—once you've gone through the app walkthrough, you'll get it. Floristry sits high among the simplest two-player board games I've ever played.

Game Experience

Decision Space

For how light the game is, Floristry packs more depth than you might expect. The decisions aren't many, but there's enough to consider with each decision that the better player will usually come out ahead. Here are some of the things I'm thinking about with every round:

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Do I want this set of tiles? With every auction, you can potentially win three of the four tiles in the flop. But just because you can win three of those tiles doesn't mean you should. Yeah, you want more tiles so you can grow your flower groupings, but the wrong tiles can end up getting in the way. You have to assess the tiles for what value they bring to your own grid.

One thing to consider is how well the tiles in the auction work together, whether they're complementary with each other or clashing with too much variety. If three of the tiles have Roses, that's a good opportunity to start or expand your Rose grouping—especially if one of those tiles is a double Rose. On the other hand, if it's just a hodgepodge of random flowers, winning the set might force you to stretch your strategy in too many directions.

You also have to consider how well the tiles work with your current grid. Early on, when your grid is mostly empty and your possibilities are endless, any tile is a good tile. But maybe it's halfway through a game where you're going all in on Mums, Tulips, and Daisies, and maybe your grid doesn't have enough room to support Roses as well. Here, winning an auction full of Rose tiles could hamper the greater scoring potential of your other groupings in progress.

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Does my opponent want this set of tiles? With every auction, you basically have to make the same assessment two times: once for yourself, once for your opponent. You can see how their grid is going and try to suss out what their overall strategy might be, then evaluate the tiles from their perspective—either you both want the tiles, neither wants the tiles, or one wants it while the other doesn't. This plays a key role in the psychological mind play.

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How many tiles are left in each flower type? With only a finite number of each flower, you have to consider how many have already come out and how many remain in the bag. If your opponent is heavy on Mums, you have to ditch that as a strategy—and better to do that sooner than later. Then again, if your opponent needs two more Mums to reach the next scoring tier, it might be in your interest to outbid them on the remaining Mums.

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How much am I willing to spend on these tiles? This decision depends on the above two assessments you've made. If you really like the tiles, you should be willing to spend more on them; if you don't like them, you might not be willing to spend anything at all. But you also have to weigh that against how much you think your opponent wants them, and that's where it gets interesting.

You might be willing to spend $3 in one auction, but maybe you believe your opponent doesn't want these tiles at all and is willing to run it down to $0. Are you still going to bid $3? Or are you going to risk it for $2? Or $1? How confident are you in your read of your opponent? How much money can you save with reads like that? Because every dollar counts in the end.

Meanwhile, there are times when the flop is super valuable and you don't want to risk it being snatched out from under you. Like, maybe you're on the brink of expanding your Rose patch from an 11-grouping (worth 6 points) to a 12-grouping (worth 10 points) and you know there aren't any Roses left in the game. It might be worth spending $5 to secure the last Rose in an auction.

It goes the other direction, too. You might not care for the flop but you know your opponent really wants it and you think they might pay $4 or even $5 for it. You see that these tiles will give them a lot of points. Are you going to snatch it away for $5? Because you can definitely do that...!

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Where am I placing these tiles in my grid? Every round, you have to place either one or three tiles into your grid. This is the spatial puzzle aspect of Floristry. But as it turns out, piecing together domino-style tiles together to form groupings doesn't take much brain power. The main thing here is making sure your placements don't hinder your future tile placements.

Overall, it isn't very thinky in this regard. You won't run into analysis paralysis; once you have your tiles, it's generally straightforward where they go. Don't go into this one expecting a difficult spatial puzzle. Most of the challenge takes place in the auctions, not in the tile placements.

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How much money do I have left? Your ability to make those $5 power moves depends on how well you manage your funds. Because while you could make $5 power moves all game long, you'll end the game with $0 (or close to $0), and that's just going to reward your opponent with bonus points.

Remember, at the end of the game, whoever has more money leftover earns bonus points based on the difference in money between players—and those end-game bonus points can push the win to your opponent if you aren't careful. You want to avoid outpacing them too much in spending, and that's something to keep in mind with every bid you make.

Luck Factor

Floristry isn't a lucky game at all. Sure, the set of tiles that come up for auction every round are randomly drawn, but you get to decide how much it's worth to you, how much you think it's worth to your opponent, how much to bid, and what to do with those tiles when they're added to your grid.

And while any given auction set is random, you know that every single tile does eventually come out. It's not like you can go for Hydrangeas only for half of the Hydrangeas to never show up for auction. (Oh, that would suck.)

There's no way for luck to bone you. You can always plan ahead and bid accordingly. When things don't go your way, you can always trace it back to some decision(s) you made earlier. The better player will win most times.

Fun Factor

Floristry is more fun than I'd expected, with the Dutch auctions being the magic ingredient. All the excitement comes from the gap between what you're willing to bid for a set of tiles versus what you think your opponent will bid. When you get it wrong, you're filled with surprise and regret.

There's tangible tension with every auction as you balance your desire to win those needed tiles now against the desire to wait out the clock and save a few bucks. You don't want to burn $5 on a set if you can help it, nor do you want to wait too long and lose those tiles. This internal tension is tasty, and it cranks up with every round as your potential to earn points dwindles.

Ultimately, Floristry is about these mind games. I've even had jump-out-of-my-seat moments when I've misread my opponent and gotten greedy for one more price drop, only for them to snatch tiles out from under me.

Pacing

Floristry has perfect pacing for a lightweight two-player game. Rounds are snappy, gameplay is simultaneous, there's no downtime, and the game arc builds to a climax. And it's not like whoever buys the most tiles always wins the game—the final bonus for spending less money means you can still swing a win in your favor. It isn't obvious who's going to win until the very end.

It only takes about 1 to 2 minutes per round, so Floristry plays in about 15 to 20 total minutes. It's fast, yet it packs a good amount of game into that short time. It's a solid pick for when you want something both chill and tense.

Player Interaction

Floristry is about mind games. You're directly bidding against someone else, and you're trying to score tiles for as little as you can without allowing your opponent to trample all over you. It's not mean. It's not stressful. You aren't messing with each other's grids. But it does tread a fine line between indirect conflict and feeling like you're butting heads. I really like this balance, which somehow feels cozy and competitive at the same time.

Fiddliness

Floristry isn't very fiddly. There's only one bit I don't like: the free-floating grid of tiles within your frame. If you aren't careful and end up bumping it, the tiles could scatter in a way that's unrecoverable. It's not a huge issue because the game is so fast and worst case you can just start over, but worth noting. Otherwise, the app makes the game conveniently fiddle-free.

Replayability

Despite how much I enjoy this game, Floristry isn't the type of game that I want to play over and over again. It's so quick that one play feels too short, but two or three times is good—beyond that, I'm ready to move on. The gameplay is samey from play to play, and there isn't any variability built into it. You see all the tiles every game and nothing gets switched up between games.

But I keep wanting to come back to it. Yes, it's fun. Yes, I like it a lot. And yes, I'm keeping it in my collection because it's so easy to pull out, set up, and bang out a game or two. It's perfect as part of a larger collection of two-player filler-style games like Jaipur, Patchwork, A Little Wordy, and Castle Combo. It's great in small bites and it's tasty enough to inspire cravings.

Production Quality

Floristry is a well-produced game, with proper attention paid to the quality and aesthetics of its components without going overboard. My partner was totally taken in by it from the moment we opened the box, and the look of it alone played a big role in how much we enjoyed it.

The cardboard frames are sturdy and practical. The inclusion of this frame is brilliant, as it delineates each player's play area and helps keep their tiles in order. It's a visual-mental thing, intuitively showing how much space you have for arranging your tiles. Without the frame, it'd be a bear to keep yourself honest as you place tiles within the space constraints. Having the point tracker on the frame is also good efficiency of design.

The wooden flower tiles are tactile yet restrained, and the draw bag is neither too thin nor too small. I love that UP Games went with wooden tiles over cardboard tiles, which could've been a legitimate cost-cutting measure but would've killed the core tactile experience. The tiles are sized perfectly, neither obnoxiously large nor too small to handle, and the draw bag has enough room to stir and shuffle the tiles with ease.

The scoring easel is very helpful. Floristry's scoring thresholds aren't exactly intuitive, but it almost doesn't matter because you have this easel display in the center of the table that you can reference with a glance. It shows a well-designed chart (on both sides) that aids with decision-making and keeps the game zipping along without hiccups. It'd be noticeably worse without it.

The cat scoring meeples are absolutely adorable! You don't really use these meeples except at the end of the game, so you could argue that they're almost unnecessary. (Scoring could've been handled by the app.) But I love their inclusion because they up the cuteness factor and tie everything together. And if you're a fidgeter, they feel good to fiddle with.

The companion app is generally well-made. To be fair, it's a darn simple app without a lot of bells and whistles, but credit where credit is due. It works well and keeps the game moving. I appreciate the app's design and how it facilitates an intuitive play experience. (I've only run into one bug so far where the scoring walkthrough can sometimes glitch out. But since scoring is manual anyway, this isn't a game-breaking bug. Not a huge deal.)

The box is no bigger than it needs to be, with a thoughtful internal design. While it's far from a tiny or compact box, it's definitely efficient. When I open it up and see inside, I can't think of how it could've gone any smaller—and that's something I appreciate a lot these days, given how many games I have on my shelf where space is a premium.

The Bottom Line

I'm downright charmed by Floristry. Look beneath the flowery artwork and well-made componentry and you'll find a psychological mind game that's somehow both cozy yet competitive. The Dutch auction is tense, the spatial puzzle is interesting, and the whole thing comes together nicely.

Is it a game I want to play all the time? No. But is it one I keep coming back to? Yes. Floristry is a great example of a game that's streamlined yet still has depth, wrapped in a gorgeous production that still shows restraint. It's exactly what I want in a lightweight two-player game. Bravo.

Buy it from:
Amazon • Miniature Market • Noble Knight Games

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