Leelawadee is a very cute looking game of butterflies and flowers; however, whilst it’s a simple game I think there is some interesting gameplay decisions within.  Players take turns taking flowers from the random selection available for that round and placing them on their garden.  Players pick 1 flower going clockwise and then pick another going in reverse order.

If a player’s garden has a particular mix of flowers, they attract the relevant butterfly; for example, single colour butterflies are attracted to any garden which as the most (or equal-most) contiguous group of flowers that match their colour.  There are two-colour butterflies that are like single-colour but are attracted to groups of flowers comprised of both of their colour.  The five-colour butterfly goes to the connected area of flowers that have the most variety of colours.

At the end of a round, players score points for any butterflies they have at their garden (though they get fewer if the butterfly was there the round before).  Players lose quite a lot of points for every colour that is not present in their garden at the end of the game.

There is an advanced rule which has a bumble bee being attracted to the garden with the largest group of flowers of a single-colour but it scores minus points, so players need to try and balance creating large groups of flowers without attracting the bumble bee.

I think Leelawadee will appeal to a family audience but has some solid logical and tactical choices within it.

You can read the rules and see the details of the game on Cwali’s web site using this link: bga.me/leelawadee

James.