Last Thursday was our weekly Pray & Play, and it unintentionally turned into an evening full of nature games…my favorite! (5 of my top 10 games of all time are nature themed!) I love nature games not only because I love nature in real life, but also because it lends itself to some aesthetically beautiful table presence! We also had enough people that I needed to make two pies, so I made two very similar ones and we got to compare! Read on for the details.

At a Glance…

The Pies

I found these two pies in a great recipe search one day, and realized how similar they were. When I found out we’d have about 9 people coming for game night I though, perfect! Now I can make them both and compare them side-by-side! Problem is, they are both delightful in different ways! 😂 The Minimalist Baker version is definitely simpler and lives up to its ‘minimal’ name. It has a smaller ingredient list and therefore fewer steps. I think because of that, the date caramel in the middle really shined. The top crust froze better, which was a pro and con, in my opinion. It certainly made it prettier and gave it more definition, but the layers were very distinct and at times hard to break into. The Vegan Richa version was more involved, and some of my friends liked its smoother overall texture while others found it too mushy. Both were straightforward to make and both received many a compliment! Just a heads up that making two of these date heavy pies back-to-back was a bit of a strain on my simple little Ninja , but it survived!

The Plays

We started with a few rounds of Just One, a classic intro to the evening kinda game as people are trickling in. I love how easy it is to jump in/out and start/stop the game. You can find a more detailed run through of my thoughts and how to play in my first post about it here.

We had been playing a lot of group games at pray & play with 6-8 people recently, and I was ready for something more strategic, so it was time to split up! Jon took 3 people and played Life of the Amazonia, and I took 3 people and played Rescue Polar Bears and Photosynthesis.

Life of the Amazonia is one of our newest games, and it is quickly rising to the top of my favorites list. Funny story about its acquisition- I had it on my Christmas wishlist last Christmas, along with the upgraded components and mini-expansion. Grandma kindly got us the upgraded components, but no one got us the game itself. Oh noooo….whatever shall we dooo? Guess since we now have these $15 upgrades we’ll have to buy the $80 game! 😂 I love the game play itself since it’s a bag building game like Orleans, another favorite of mine. I won’t get too detailed, but essentially it’s like an amped up Cascadia where you’re trying to build habitats and attract animals, but add in more complicated scoring conditions and the bag building and you’ve got a beautiful and thinky game!

Rescue Polar Bears is sooooo cute! We’d heard about it a while ago and loved the idea of the theme, and knew the components were great. So despite having not tried it again, when we saw someone selling it second hand and knew how hard it was to find new, we instantly snapped it up and haven’t regretted that decision. It’s a typical cooperative game where you do your good actions and then bad things happen, but I love that you’re trying to convince the wider scientific community of this problem, and that if you lose even a single bear you lose the game. Luckily, we did not lose!

We also got in a snappy game of Photosynthesis, the ruthless game of growing your forest. People describe it that way, but honestly, unless you’re that kind of player, I’m usually too busy worrying about my own trees to have time to think about blocking other people. In the game, light is your currency and you are trying to grow trees to eventually…cut them down 😭? Let them fall down naturally? to get points. Everything is super intuitive, with things costings 1, 2, or 3 light points for small, medium, or large trees respectively. And it looks beautiful on the table! Overall a great game night!

Want to buy these games? Check out your FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) or Board Game Bliss using my referral!

Or get them on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca! (Just One- US, Canada , Photosynthesis US, Life of the Amazonia US, Canada)