Garden Variety

Gameplay

Garden Variety is a beautifully illustrated card game reminiscent of the classic card game War, reimagined with bees, flowers, garden gnomes, and frogs, among other things. Players roll a six-sided die to decide the rule for each round, then take turns playing cards from their hands to satisfy the rule.

To decide the rule for each round, one player must roll the die. If a 0, 3, 5, 7, or 10 is rolled, then the player who plays a card closest to that number wins. But it’s not always that simple.

The game comes with a deck of 54 cards, which is made up of Critter Cards, Wildflower Cards, and Gnome Cards, each with their own unique—and adorable—illustration. The Critter Cards are numbered 1-9, with a select few cards featuring a “0 or 10” designation. They fall into one of four categories: Blue Opossum, Red Snail, Green Frog, and Yellow Bee. Like in all ecosystems, there is a critter hierarchy. If two cards of the same number are played, players then defer to the hierarchy to determine the winner: Blue Opossum beats Red Snail, which beats Green Frog, which beats Yellow Bee, which in turn beats Blue Opossum.

Wildflower Cards are also numbered 1-9, and if a Wildflower Card and a Critter Card of the same number are played, the Wildflower Card always wins.

Then there’s the matter of the Gnome Cards. With one of these mischievous cards, you can switch up the game in your favor. They feature directions like “Reroll the dice, then play another card,” and “Take another player’s card for the round. (They have no card for the round.)” Play them wisely!

Now, if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice I mentioned the game comes with a six-sided die, but I only mentioned five of the sides. The sixth side is a “!”, which if rolled, means players must play their cards first, then roll the die again to decide the rule for the game. A plot twist, indeed!

The player who wins the round takes all the cards played for their garden—which is an on-theme way of saying discard pile. To start a new round, players refill their hand with a card from the main deck and the winner of the previous round rolls the die again. Once the deck is run through and one player runs out of cards, all remaining cards in players’ hands are added to their garden, and the most populated garden wins!

History

Tee Turtle was founded by Ramy Badie in 2022. What started out as a t-shirt company based in Baltimore has since grown to include plushies (the Moody Reversible Octopus!), games, and accessories.

In 2017, Unstable Unicorns launched via Kickstarter to great success, which paved the way for Unstable Games, which is Tee Turtle’s dedicated game studio. They’ve designed games like Here to Slay, Twisted Cryptids, Happy Little Dinosaurs, and Command of Nature, in addition to Garden Variety.

Reception & Awards

Garden Variety was the 2024 Winner of the Top Holiday Gifts category in the Parents’ Picks Awards!