Takenoko

In Takenoko, the Japanese emperor has received a panda as a gift from the Chinese emperor. Of course, he's going to live in his beautiful bamboo garden, but that's going to cause a lot of trouble for the gardener! Takenoko is a fun building game where all players manipulate the same bamboo garden to complete their score cards. The game board starts with few squares, but as you play, the game board expands and the bamboo garden starts to grow. At the start of the game, each player is secretly given score cards on which they can see what they are trying to do in the garden. This could be getting the panda to eat certain bamboo, growing certain stacks of bamboo or building certain squares next to each other. Now the players take turns to take two actions each. You can expand the garden, move the gardener or the panda and get effects from them and water the bamboo in order to fulfill your score cards. But think carefully, because the weather can affect how the garden and your turn work. The winner of Takenoko is the one with the most points once a player has fulfilled seven of their score cards. The shared tiles and secret objectives ensure that players interact a lot with each other and foil a lot of each other's plans. The variety and player interaction makes it easily a game you can play over and over again.