SNAP Review – Abandon All Artichokes

Get the artichokes out of your hand of cards! That’s the concept behind this unique “deck-wrecking” game.

Abandon All Artichokes is a fast-moving card game for 2-4 players ages 10+, designed by Emma Larkins and published by Gamewright.

Anitra and Claire will tell you all about it in just over five minutes. Listen in, or read on below.

How To Play

Every player starts with their own deck of ten artichoke cards. Draw five to make your first hand.

On your turn, you’ll first “harvest” a card from the garden row by adding it to your hand.

Then, play any number of cards, one at a time. Place a veggie card down in front of you and do what it says. Once you’re done with its action, place it in your personal discard pile (unless the card instructs you otherwise).

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Some cards let you “compost” an Artichoke. This means to put it in the pile next to the Garden Stack, effectively removing it from your hand & deck.

When you’re all done playing cards, discard any left in your hand (usually more Artichokes). Draw a new hand of 5 from your personal deck, shuffling in your discard pile if necessary.

At the end of your turn, after drawing a new hand, check for Artichokes. If you have none in your hand, you are the winner! Show off your hand to the other players and “Abandon All Artichokes”!

Impressions

This is an incredibly easy game to get into. Grab your deck of ten cards, set up the common “garden row”, and start playing right away.

Similar to a game like Fluxx or Get the MacGuffin, all the cards tell you exactly what to do, so there’s not much explaining to learn the game the first time.

We thought “deck-wrecking” was a fun twist on deck building. There’s a nice tension between adding more useful cards and getting rid of the useless Artichokes. It’s a great introduction to deck-building with an obvious goal and an intuitive endpoint – get rid of Artichokes!

Strategic Options

We’ve tried different strategies as we’ve played this game.

Claire prefers to take cards that let her use “compost” abilities right away. This pares down her deck as quickly as possible, and allows her to always know exactly where her Artichokes are. Often this strategy pares down her deck to fewer than five cards, meaning all her cards are always in her hand.

Anitra prefers to take cards that lets her grab even more veggie cards, filling the deck with non-Artichokes in the hopes of drawing a good hand sooner rather than later.

Abandon All Artichokes has lot of reading so it’s best with older children. It is playable with pre-readers if you’re patient and they have a good memory.

The Artichokes and veggies are super cute. Artichokes range from happy to worried to angry and they’re all on a dark background. The other veggies are all on white background, so it’s easy to spot the Artichokes.

Downsides

There were two minor problems we found. Even though the game moves quickly, you have to wait for previous player to draw a new hand to see if they’ve won. This often involves shuffling their discard pile, and slows down the otherwise fast game.

The tin is really eye-catching, but it’s hard to open and annoying to store. We might move the game to a double-deck Card Caddy if it’s going to get a lot of play. But for under $15, it’s hard to complain when the game itself is so great.

We rate Abandon All Artichokes 4.5 out of 5 vegetables. “And yes, artichoke, you’re the half!”

Find it on Amazon or ask for it at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Abandon All Artichokes from Gamewright for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?