Wouter & Ymke 
There’s something charming about tiny gnomes doing serious garden work. Gnome Hollow drops you right into their hidden village, where everyone’s busy preparing for the Hollow Harvest, growing mushrooms, collecting wildflowers, and trading shiny things that probably don’t make much sense to us humans.
It’s a tile-laying and resource management game where you build up the garden together, forming mushroom rings and trying to keep the forest magic alive. And at the end, the most successful gnome gets crowned as mayor of the Hollow. Sadly, there’s no actual hat in the box. I checked.
👥 2-4 players, ages 12+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designer: Ammon Anderson
🎨 Artwork: Ammon Anderson & Patrick Spaziante
🏢 Publisher: White Goblin Games (Dutch version, review copy provided) Originally published by Levity Games.
How it plays
Play goes in turns around the table. On your turn, you do three simple things: place tiles, resolve what happens, and move a gnome.
You pick two garden tiles from a shared display and place them in the communal garden. Each tile shows mushroom paths that need to connect properly, paths to paths and grass to grass. You can also place up to two tiles you’ve stored from earlier turns.
The idea is to form closed mushroom rings. When you complete one, you get mushrooms and move a ring marker on your player board to record your progress and possibly trigger a bonus. Depending on what you completed, you might gain extra mushrooms, place a signpost that gives a small extra, or earn a wildflower tile that acts as a flexible placement piece. You get these wildflowers when you finish your 2nd, 4th, and 6th rings, so there’s a bit of planning in when to go for them.
Wildflower tiles can connect anywhere, even to other players’ paths without asking, and they’ll close a ring automatically in the shortest way possible. They’re a nice little twist.
Finally, you can move one of your two gnomes to take an action. You can claim a mushroom path, visit the flower market to grab a flower token you don’t have yet, visit a signpost to activate it, or head to the pinwheel market to sell your mushrooms for treasures that score points.
The market sits on the big stump tile in the centre. You can sell up to two different sets of mushrooms per visit. Once you sell, that spot’s blocked for everyone else, so there’s a bit of timing tension there. And once a colour’s full, that type of mushroom can only be sold for cheap.
The game ends when someone collects their eighth flower, moves their eighth ring marker, or when there are no tiles left to draw. Everyone gets one last gnome action before scoring.
You score points for flowers, rings, and treasures. Mushrooms themselves are worth nothing at the end, which always feels a bit rude after all the effort, but fair enough. The gnome with the most points becomes the next mayor of Gnome Hollow.
Looks and components
The art is… interesting. You might love it, or not at all. It’s got a soft, storybook look, all watercolours and muted greens. It’s definitely different from most games on the shelf. Personally, it’s not really my style, but I get what they were going for. It fits the theme, I’ll give them that.
The components, though, are good. The magnetic player boards are clever. The ring markers stick in place, so nothing slides around when someone bumps the table. You’ve got the big stump tile in the middle, 92 garden tiles, and some nice wooden gnome figures with printed characters.
There are mushroom tokens in five colours, flower tokens shaped like little potted plants, and treasures that look like random trinkets: buttons, feathers, keys, and so on. It all feels good to play with, and looks colourful without overdoing it.
Everything’s easy to see on the table, which helps once the garden starts spreading. The pinwheel market and tile display boards are clear, and the iconography is simple enough that you rarely need to check the rulebook.
Our experience
After a few turns, Gnome Hollow starts to feel like a living puzzle. The garden expands from that central stump into this strange, colourful maze of paths. It looks great once it’s built.
The flow of the game is simple: place tiles, resolve effects, move a gnome. But how you use those steps changes a lot. You’re constantly balancing three things: flowers for variety, rings for progress, and treasures for points. Because mushrooms don’t score at the end, the pressure to sell them in time is always there.
There’s a nice bit of interaction too. You share the same garden, so you’re constantly bumping into each other’s plans. You can’t share paths, and market spaces fill up as players make sales, so timing matters even without direct blocking. It’s polite competition, but it keeps everyone alert.
The game develops in stages. Early on you’re just making rings and unlocking bonuses. Then midgame arrives and things start chaining together, one bonus leads to another, and suddenly you’ve got a full combo going. The endgame is where it speeds up again, with everyone trying to squeeze in one last sale or bonus before the harvest ends.
Those cascade turns are the highlight for me. When everything lines up and you get a proper chain of actions, it’s very satisfying to pull off. And the best part is, everyone can follow what’s happening. It’s busy but not confusing.
At two players, it’s more of a calm, strategic puzzle. You can plan a few turns ahead. With three or four, it becomes more reactive and slightly unpredictable as tiles appear and disappear and the market fills up faster. At higher counts it can get tricky to see who owns which ring, but it’s not a dealbreaker.
Tile draws can swing things a bit. Sometimes you’ll get exactly the tile you needed, sometimes not. I don’t mind that, it gives the game a light, family feel. But I did notice that the “permission” rule can lead to some awkward endgame politics. It’s not mean, but you’ll get the occasional “if you let me do this, I won’t block you next round” kind of table talk.
Still, the game stays approachable. The turns are clear, and once people understand the loop, it flows smoothly.
Our thoughts
Gnome Hollow offers a calm little puzzle for people who enjoy shared boards and gentle interaction. It’s not a big, showy game, it’s more about small choices and good timing. You’re balancing small and large rings, choosing when to sell mushrooms, and figuring out how to make the most of that one gnome move you get per turn.
That one-move rule actually adds a lot. Early on you might feel like you’re not doing much, but later you’ll wish you could split your gnome in two. Planning where to move next becomes part of the fun.
The market is where things start to feel a bit tighter. Each colour has limited selling spots, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. Purple mushrooms are the rarest and most valuable, so there’s always that “should I sell now or wait one more turn?” feeling.
The game’s biggest strength is how your decisions connect. Small rings help you build momentum, while bigger rings unlock stronger bonuses and more scoring potential. Wildflower tiles and signposts tie everything together into little combos.
If you want a bit more challenge, the variant boards are worth trying once you know the basics. The mushroom trade board brings in a bit more planning without overcomplicating things, and the advanced player board changes how you score rings by shape. It’s tighter, but in a good way.
The endgame can feel a bit slower, mostly because everyone’s counting and planning their final move. You really need to watch when someone is close to their eighth flower or ring marker, since a well-timed last action can make a real difference.
What I like most about Gnome Hollow is how it feels when the garden finally spreads across the table. You can see everyone’s work mixed together, no clear borders, just paths and rings that tell the story of the game. It’s quiet, a little messy, and kind of beautiful in its own way.
📝 We received a copy of Gnome Hollow from White Goblin Games.
