Pergola review

Pergola from Rebel Studio is a cozy gardening game where players set out to turn their backyards into point-generating landscapes full of lovely plants buzzing with friendly insects. It is an action-selection game with just a hint of player interaction and a sandbox of a player board on which to grow your garden.

Gameplay in Pergola is pretty simple. It is a point salad game where everything you do generates some amount of points, and none of the decisions you make are difficult. It’s a cozy game after all. No stress allowed in the flower garden. A rotating selection of garden tools shows you what plants you will get to take and add to your board, combined with an action that, you guessed it, generates more points. Each type of plant and bug in your garden scores in different ways and can be combined for even more points. The winner is the player who makes the best choices from the four available tools each turn. 

I wouldn’t recommend Pergola if you want a crunchy, competitive game where you are playing to win. You can certainly play Pergola to win, but it is at its best when you are there for the experience, or the vibes (I think that’s what the kids say these days). The player boards in Pergola are just wide open gardens. No set spaces to put tokens. No requirements for what plants go where, and no grid lines to organize your pieces. Just a blank canvas for you to explore. If that gives you anxiety, take a breath, smell the flowers, it’s going to be ok. In Pergola, you decide what your garden is going to look like. There are scoring requirements you have to observe, but the game really does leave it up to the player to organize their board however they want. 

Player interaction in Pergola is very low. There are limited components, and someone might take the garden tool you were hoping for, but that is about it. In a four-player game, some of the pieces will run out, but at anything lower than that, even that bit of interaction disappears. Play can be pretty quick since once you select a tool and do the action, the next player can go while you spend the time before your next turn deciding where you want your new plants and artfully arranging them. Personally, I like to fly the dragonflies around the board and move my unused butterflies about. If you’re a points maxer, analysis paralysis could be a problem. All the plants score in different ways, and the insects score based on their positions on the plants, and you can take an action to move the insects. It can be a lot if you’re taking it very seriously, but I would encourage you to just let those inclinations go. Spend a little time in the garden, and see what points you got in the end. Life doesn’t need to be that serious.

The artwork and production value are top-notch. From the stunning watercolor box art, to the flower tokens and wooden insect bits, every component is a feast for the eyes. The GameTrays organizer is functional, but they made a choice not to go for a lid on the token tray, so storing the game sideways is not advised.