Gillian and I visited the Missouri Botanical Garden today. Although the Garden isn't as beautiful in February as it is in the spring, we always enjoy the scenery along with the brisk walk. We make a point of visiting once per season.
The Garden has a nice gift shop that sells books, decorations and plants. Of course, my game-radar immediately locked in on the stack of games for sale. But, alas, the entire stack consisted of six version of Monopoly -- including Garden-opoly, Earth-opoly, Bird-opoly, St. Louis-opoly, Chocolate-opoly and Wine-opoly. It's interesting that Monopoly is consistently derided by boardgamers, yet there are hundreds of versions. Of course, just because the BoardGameGeeks don't think much of the game (as of today, it's ranked #5,935 at BoardGameGeek) doesn't mean that the average American can't like it. Also, part of this reflects the copyright situation for Monopoly. (If companies started making knockoff versions of Puerto Rico, Rio Grande Games would start filing lawsuits.)
So what garden-themed games do gamers like? The highest-rated game at BoardGameGeek with a garden theme is Garden Competition by Toccato Games. I've never played the game, but Tom Vassel has a review at BoardGameGeek. As for other games, Peer Sylvester has created a GeekList of garden-themed games. Another GeekList focuses more heavily on flower-themed games. Overall, the category seems a little weak, but it would be great if the Garden's shop started carrying some of these games. I think garden-lovers deserve better than Monopoly.
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