With a design by Mark Wootton and Elizabeth Hargrave, best known for the hit game Wingspan (Stonemaier Games), expectations were high for AEG's Undergrove. It's a game set among the undergrowth around a North American pine tree where the 1-4 players are building a tableau of fungii and seedlings, with the latter putting out roots to benefit from the special abilities generated by the fungii. Ultimately, your seedlings will grow into sapling trees, advancing the game towards its conclusion, and along the way you'll be racking up points.
Mushrooms may not be as immediately appealing as birds but Beth Sobel's art still does a fine job of conveying the beauty of the undergrowth. The natural world theme shines through, tho' in our plays at Board's Eye View several players remarked that Undergrove had much of the feel of an economic game. There's no buying or selling of course but you'll be building a biochemical economy of the elements needed for plant growth: Carbon (C), Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). You'll need to send roots out to neighbouring fungii to give you the engine you need that ensures you have the resources demanded for growth and to give you access to the actions you want to take. And where you have a lot of options, turns are really about puzzle optimisation.
This is a 'steady as you go' game, which is perhaps appropriate to the bucolic theme. You might gain an additional action on a turn but this is not one of those games where each action generally gives rise to a whole cascade of extra actions.
Undergrove is very well produced. We particularly appreciated the tuckboxes for keeping together all of the tokens for each of the players, all the bonus tiles and all the cubes and discs representing the resources. These are convenient for play and storage, and they ease both the set up and tear down of play. You will probably use them only once but it's particularly commendable that AEG have incorporated a set of 'Quick Sprout Guides': one for each player in a four-player game. These aren't player aids but rather asymmetric step-through guides for the first four turns of a game, introducing the mechanics and easing players into their first play of Undergrove.