Under the Leaves is what I like to call a “state function” game. What this means is that every time you make a move you need to reevaluate the overall equilibrium of your board or game state. Don’t get mad at me thermodynamics nerds, I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s perfectly fine, and if you’re looking for a cozy, if familiar, tile laying experience, you’ll find a lot to like here.

Place the tiles

On your turn, you select a tile from a market of 3. You have to place it within your personal tile grid, and there are blissfully few rules for placement, other than preserving the overall grid-y-ness of the whole thing. There are five different terrain possibilities (ok, one of them is ponds, which aren’t technically terrains in game parlance), and you’re trying to make different configurations to score some points.

So, you place the tile, and then you check and see if your state function updates. The rulebook suggests that you follow this order: bees, hummingbirds, green card, blue card, brown card. Works for me.

Whenever you make a new contiguous group of three or more of the same terrain type, you get to add a bee meeple to it. On top of this,…

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