Designers Daniel Skjold Pedersen and Asger Harding Granerud deliver a super fun game for players of all ages. Hutan: Life in the Rainforest (from The Op) is beautifully illustrated by Vincent Dutrait and challenges 1-4 players to grow their own rainforest patch by planting sprouts and flowers that turn into trees. Indonesian for forest, Hutan also has players create a habitat to attract one of five animals – Orangutan, Sumatran tiger, rhinoceros hornbill, cassowary, or the Sumatran rhino – to populate your rainforest. The player with the best rainforest wins!
Dutrait did the illustrations for Aqua, which also comes from Sidekick Games, so I was immediately drawn to its aesthetics, but even more so the fun gameplay. It’s nice to have both games next to one another on the shelf!
What’s in the box?
Hutan comes with 16 Rainforest Boards, 130 flowers in red, yellow, blue, white, and grayish purple, 64 trees, 15 animals (3 of each), 70 flower and 24 ecosystem cards, one pangolin token, a score pad, and rulebook.
Like Aqua and other games I have from the The OP, the quality of the components is incredible. It was really easy to punch out all the trees and flowers, and the print on the meeples was superb. I also loved that the insert was cardboard and not plastic! Dutrait’s art is so vibrant, you can’t help but be drawn into the world of the game.
How’s it play?
First, shuffle the flower cards into nine facedown stacks of 3, 5, or 7 cards each depending on the number of players in the game. The stacks are the market for the game. Flower and tree tokens are placed nearby. There are four types of trees but the tree type doesn’t matter during gameplay.
There are four types of rainforest boards denoted with white, pink, red, and blue squares or circles in the corner. One player takes one of each at random and organizes them into a two by two grid. The other players then arrange their boards the same way.
Three of the four boards will have a lake spot where you cannot grow flowers.
Hutan takes place over 9 rounds with two turns per round. Each turn has three phases. One stack is flipped over and the player with the pangolin token will go first.
First, pick up a flower card and collect those matching flowers from the supply. That card is returned to the box. Then place your flowers onto the board. Flowers must go into their own separate spaces and be placed adjacent (not diagonal) to one you’ve placed this turn. However, you’ll also want to keep track of where and what you’re placing, since at the end of the game, you lose points if your areas (2-5 spaces bounded by water) have mixed colors!
Second, you’ll grow trees. Once you’ve placed a flower of the same color on a previously placed flower, that one actually gets returned to the supply, and a tree is placed there instead. Trees are worth points at the end of the game and also help to populate the habitats in the third phase.
In the third and final phase of your turn, you’ll look to see if you have a complete area and a perfect habitat where each square in the area has a tree. If so, the last tree placed is replaced with an animal that matches the color of the flower in that area. You can attract one animal per turn, so you would decide based on the animal’s ability to fertilize.
A placed animal allows you to place flowers in any adjacent spot to the animal!
The first player of each round does need to put the pangolin card into the market on their first turn (which allows the player who picks it later to add a flower of any color onto their board).
Gameplay continues clockwise until all the market cards are gone and then it’s time to score!
Players gain 2 points for every rainforest tree, different points for each animal based on the points listed on the board, and points for complete areas based on the points listed on the board. Unfortunately, for every area that is unfinished or has mixed colors, you lose points as listed.
Like Aqua, there are variants. Family makes the game a bit easier, and advanced adds ecosystem cards into the game, which add points based on the goal on the cards. There are also special challenges and scenarios that can be played based on setting up the game a certain way.
The verdict?
I absolutely loved playing Hutan. A lot of games say they’re quick to learn but my friend(s) and I regularly find ourselves poring over the rulebook to make sure we understood a mechanic properly or that we didn’t misunderstand a particular exception to a rule.
We did not have that issue with this game. In fact, I remember telling my friend that this was the fastest game we had learned to play and the game goes really quickly so you can play multiple times without it feeling boring or onerous. I am super excited to try the variants and challenges, just like with Aqua. The rulebook also has a lovely page describing the various animals so you learn something too.
If you like the theme and tile placement, then this is definitely a must have for your collection! You can get Hutan now from The Op or your FLGS for $39.99.
Images courtesy of The Op
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