Wouter & Ymke 
In Evergreen, where players build a thriving ecosystem by planting seeds and growing trees, things are about to get more interesting. The new expansion, Evergreen: Pines & Cacti, introduces some fresh additions—cacti and pine trees—alongside the existing bushes and regular trees, all competing for sunlight.
👥 1-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designer: Hjalmar Hach
🎨 Artwork: Wenyi Geng
🏢 Publisher: Horrible Guild (review copy provided)
Growing the Evergreen World: New Challenges Ahead
This expansion brings two new modules to the game, each featuring a different type of plant with unique abilities. To use one of these modules, you need to remove one of the existing card powers. This involves replacing all seven cards with the same power with the new ones from the module. There’s also an overlay tile that covers the old power on the player board.
The first module features pine trees, which grow better in the shade. The card’s power lets you transform one of your sprouts into a small pine tree anywhere on the world map. Before you count light points at the end of a season, check if the tree is in the shade. If it is, the small pine grows into a large pine tree, casting a two-space shadow and earning points when it catches light. At the end of the game, these large pines also score points based on the biome’s fertility.
The second module introduces cacti. These grow quickly but need lots of sunlight. When you use this power, you can plant a cactus in the biome shown on the card. Keep in mind that if the cactus is in the shade when the sun changes, it dies and is removed before you count light points. Cacti don’t cast shadows but earn points when they receive light. They also score points as part of the largest forest. This makes them useful for linking forests temporarily, though keeping them in the light as the sun moves around the board is tricky. At the end of the game, cacti don’t score for fertility, and if cacti cards end up in the fertility zone during play, they subtract two points from the affected biome.
A Fresh Twist on Evergreen: Shadow, Light, and Strategy
Evergreen, a game by Hjalmar Hach and published by Horrible Guild, is designed for 1-4 players, ages 8 and up, and takes around 45 minutes to play. The base game has been quite popular, and now it’s getting an expansion. This new addition, called Pines & Cacti, doesn’t make things complicated but instead brings more variety. The game is known for its charming wooden tree meeples, called “treeples.” The expansion includes new sets of light and dark teal pine trees and bright yellow cacti, which create a lovely forest on the player board.
Pines & Cacti offers a fresh take on shadow and light. In the base game, the sun determines how trees score. Now, with the expansion, you have pine trees that thrive in shadow and cacti that need light to survive. This twist makes placing the new types of trees a bit trickier, adding a new layer to the puzzle.
Players build on their own boards, but they can also mess with each other’s plans by influencing which card goes to the fertility zone. In the base game, cards with skull symbols could lower a biome’s value. The expansion adds negative fertility symbols, which can affect a biome’s value when they go to the fertility zone. These can be used strategically to decrease an opponent’s tree value in a biome, and they might even lead to negative points at the end.
The expansion modules replace one of the bonus actions each time the game changes. Swapping out the points bonus action with one module, for example, impacts the game differently than swapping out the “grow sprouts” and “bushes” actions.
Final Thoughts
After playing the base game many times, we were curious about the impact of the expansion. We liked the different approach the new modules brought. Both offer new challenges and strategies, keeping Evergreen interesting.
📝 Disclaimer: We received a copy of the game from the publisher, Horrible Guild.
