Abandon All Artichokes, Ye Who Enter Here!

Beets, potatoes, peas, and peppers: they're all welcome here! But ditch those artichokes if you want to win the game.

Published by Gamewright, Abandon All Artichokes is a light, family-friendly deck builder, with a quirky theme.

Gameplay

Each player starts with a personal deck of ten artichoke cards. You draw five cards into your hand at the start of the game. The rest of the vegetable cards are shuffled and five are laid face-up on the table to form the display. On your turn, you start by selecting one card from the display and adding it to your hand. You may then play any number of cards to perform their action. You can only play a card if you can perform the entire action listed on the card. Artichokes can never be played on their own; rather, another card must allow you to do so.

Some actions will allow you to move artichokes into the compost heap, which is the common discard pile. Some cards will also go there after you play them, while some will simply go to your personal discard pile. Actions include, for instance, moving a card from your discard pile to the top of your deck or revealing the top card of an opponent's deck and either putting it into his discard pile or adding it to your hand.

After you’ve finished playing cards, you discard all cards still in your hand and put them into your personal discard pile. You then draw up to five cards. If your personal draw deck runs out, you shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck and keep drawing. Your turn then ends. If, at the end of your turn, you do not have any artichokes in your hand, then you immediately win the game.

Review

Abandon All Artichokes is fast and easy. It manages to serve as both a light introduction to the concept of deck-building, while also being a fresh take on the genre. There’s no resource you have to spend to claim a card, and you don’t need to get rid of all your artichokes — you just need one full hand without them, which in turn changes the value of each card you add to your deck.

There’s a nice range of abilities on the cards, which gives you multiple options each turn. We also enjoy that you take the card from the display first and then take actions, ensuring that you always have at least one action you can take on your turn.

Each card clearly states that vegetable’s ability, which makes learning the game easy and keeps turns flowing nicely. You are not constantly checking the rules or a player aid. The rules in this game are easy to learn and the setup is minimal, so that you can easily start playing in five minutes or less.

Gamewright always produces excellent components, and this time is no exception. You wouldn’t think you could make artichokes look adorable, but they absolutely have. In fact, all of the art is fantastically done. The game does come in an unusually shaped tin that is cute and unique, but some people find these harder to make space for on their shelves. 

There is a bit of luck in the win condition, but it’s such a fast, family-friendly game that this doesn’t feel like a huge deal. Abandon All Artichokes is thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable.

Pros: You always have at least one action on your turn, great components, mix of old and new concepts to deck-building

Cons: Oddly-shaped tin box, win condition is a little luck based

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.