La Familia Hort Review

One thing I really enjoy about being in Purple Phoenix Games is having the opportunity to play tons of awesome games that I may not otherwise have had the chance to play. La Familia Hort is a great example. I had never even heard of the game until Marc from Grand Gamers Guild asked me if I would be interested in reviewing it. I checked it out on BGG and it seemed interesting, so I said sure. And as you can tell by our rating graphic above, Travis and I are big fans.

Disclaimer: We were provided with a copy of La Familia Hort for the purposes of this review. What you see pictured below is a finalized production copy of the game, and is what you will find in a retail copies. Also, I do not intend to rehash the entire rulebook, but rather provide a general overview of the rules and gameplay. -L

La Familia Hort is an economic game in which players are tending their farmland in order to earn experience and prove that they should inherit the family land from the ghost of their grandmother. Over a series of rounds players will be going to market, fertilizing and watering crops, and selling grown crops back to market for money or experience points (XP). Three times throughout the game a Red Moon will rise, bringing with it Granny Hortensia to check in on her grandchildren’s farm progress. After the 3rd visit from Granny, the game ends. The player who has accumulated the most XP is declared the winner!

To setup for a game place the Water cubes, Fertilizer cubes, and Coins off to the side to create a general supply. Shuffle the Normal and Red Moon tiles separately to create 2 draw piles. Each player receives 7 coins, a player board, and an XP marker to be placed on the 0 space of their XP track. Select a starting player and give them the Starting Round tile. Shuffle the remaining Round tiles and place them face-down by the general supply. From the stack of Normal tiles create the starting Market, per player count as described in the rules. The game is now ready to begin! Pictured below is the setup for a 2-player game.

Each round is made up of 5 steps: Market, Purchase, Fertilizer, Watering, and Sale. All rounds start with a Market step, in which you will add more tiles to the Market. Depending on if the Round tile is Normal or a Red Moon Round tile, you will add either Normal or Red Moon tiles to the Market. Regardless of the type of tile added, you will add one tile per player to the Market. These Market tiles are either crops (to be grown and sold), or animals/utensils (provide special benefits each round). Next comes the Purchase step. Beginning with the starting player, you have the chance to buy tiles (one at a time) from the Market to add to your player board. Pay the Coin cost to the general supply, and add the tile to one of the 6 spaces on your player board. In player order, the Purchase step continues until all players are unwilling or unable to buy any more tiles for their player board.

In the Fertilizer step, all players receive 1 Fertilizer cube from the general supply. Again, depending on if the round is Normal or a Red Moon round, players will then either fertilize one of their own crops (Red Moon round), or one of their opponent’s crops (Normal round). Fertilized crops can be sold for a higher value in the Sale step, so consider carefully what to Fertilize and when! Naturally, after fertilizing a plant, you need to Water it. All players receive Water cubes equal to the value shown on the Round tile, placing them in the Well area of their player board. Using those Water cubes, you can now add Water to your crops. Different crops require different amounts of Water to be fully grown, and have between 1-3 spaces for Water. Although you receive multiple Water cubes each round, you may only add one Water per crop every round. Any leftover Water remains in the Well of your player board, to potentially be used in future rounds.

And finally, we have the Sale step. Any of your crops that are fully-Watered (have all required Water cubes on them) must be sold in this step. Remove the crop from your player board, and earn either the Coins or XP listed in the sale price. If a crop has also been Fertilized, you earn extra Coins/XP as listed on the tile. All Water and Fertilizer Cubes are returned to the general supply, and the sold crop tiles are returned to the Market, and can be purchased again in subsequent rounds. If the 3rd Red Moon Round tile has not yet been played, a new round begins. The next player in clockwise order is the new starting player, a new Round tile is revealed, and the round is played. If you have just finished the the 3rd Red Moon Round, the game ends. Players compare XP, and the player with the highest amount is declared the winner!

I alluded to it above, and obviously in our rating graphic, but Travis and I are big fans of La Familia Hort. The gameplay requires an adaptable strategy, and brings a couple of new elements to the game that I don’t think I’ve seen in other games. I’ll touch on strategy first. This game isn’t going to completely burn your brain, but you’ve got to be thinking ahead and strategizing your course of action. Some crops give you Coins when you sell them, but some give you XP. And since XP is what wins the game, you need those. But you can’t buy crops without Coins. You’ve got to find a balance between growing both kinds of crops to ensure you can set up an engine for earning both kinds of resources. Along those same lines, different crops require different amounts of Water to be fully grown to sell. And since you can only place 1 Water per crop each round, you’ve got to be thinking rounds ahead as to when a crop will pay out and if its reward is worth waiting several rounds for.

One cool strategic element in this game is in the Fertilizing step. Sometimes you get to fertilize your own crops, but sometimes you have to fertilize your opponent’s crops. And fertilized crops earn more Coins/XP, so you have to figure out which opposing crop to fertilize that hopefully won’t benefit your opponent too much. Another element that I really like is that once you Sell a crop, it goes back into the Market and can be bought again in future rounds. It is not discarded out of the game. You could potentially buy it again, and reap its reward several times, or an opponent could snap it up before you can again. The Market is changing each round, but just because an opponent bought something, doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. This element specifically is one I don’t think I’ve seen in other games, but I really like it. It adds a unique element of strategy, as nothing is truly ever ‘gone’ from the game. And if you want a little extra oomph in your game, have players use the Advanced side of their player boards. In the Advanced mode, each player has a special and powerful ability to be used throughout the game!

Let’s talk components. Overall, this is a pretty well-produced game! The player boards, Market tiles, Round tiles, and Coins are sturdy and thick cardboard that will definitely hold up for many plays. The Water and Fertilizer cubes are just basic wooden cubes, colored appropriately for the resource they represent. The artwork is really unique and helps give the game a spooky vibe that is not complete horror. The rulebook does have a couple of areas of ambiguity, but I believe this game was not originally published in English, so that may just come from the translation between languages. Nothing game-breaking though – you may just need to sit and think for a moment to figure it out correctly. All in all, solid production and a well-made game.

I am extremely thankful that I was given the opportunity to review this game, because I don’t know if I would have ever heard of it otherwise. And that would be a huge shame because I do really like this game! La Familia Hort has a great balance of simplicity and strategy that is easy to play and keeps players engaged throughout the entire game. You’re really playing the long game here, strategy-wise, but it doesn’t feel like a long game at all, time-wise. I know that I will absolutely be pulling this game out hopefully many times in the future, and I can’t wait to introduce more people to it. I’m already thinking about when I might be able to play it next, and that is a sign of a great game to me. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a cultivated 10 / 12. I highly recommend you check out La Familia Hort – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!