I got 2 games of TEND in the last 2 days (first 3 pics are the second game, last 4 pics are the first).
This is probably my first modern flip-and-write game (alongside the roll-and-write The Hobbit There and Back Again, though I enjoyed that less).
Upfront, my personal rating after 2 games is 7/10. It's a decently fun and cozy game and maybe I'll crack it out a couple more times solo but I feel like I've seen/experienced most of what's there to experience. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as the game is a good fit for a cozy, resource-conversion mood. But ultimately I find it to have a lot of breadth with not much depth.
What I liked:
+ Growing resource and action conversion combos in mid and late game (with turns taking longer)
+ Relatively quick (1-1.5 hrs, but of course can go higher depending on AP)
+ Fishing/Mining/Chopping have a fun element of "ooo what will I find next"
+ Season objectives really change how you might approach the game
What I didn't like:
- The scratch off cards (seen in my last pic) for mining and chopping felt gimmicky and tedious. Also easy to accidentally scratch an adjacent tile and see what's there.
- Extremely luck dependent (dice rolls for fishing and geodes, scratch offs for mining/chopping, task card draws in rare cases giving you a not so great set of actions)
- Farming/Animal raising are light fun (and often the path to generating good value most turns) but lack more depth. Farming does have an extra layer around watering crops ticking up adjacent crops but that's about it. Animal raising is woefully undercooked.
- Solo mode handles neighbors quite poorly, making you lose out on potential extra free resources compared to a multiplayer game.
- No good solo scoring scale to understand how well you did (this is a minor gripe as I don't normally go for BYOS games but when I do, I appreciate when a scale is there)
- The game ultimately (by nature of choosing 2 task/action cards per turn) feels like it just boils down to farming or chopping/mining with not anymore interesting choices beyond that.
In my first game (last few pics) I ended up focusing entirely on mining and chopping, barely doing any farming or animal raising. My season 1 objective (you draw 1 objective for each of the 3 seasons) favored that so I went for it. I did get to have a fun resource conversion/combo chaining game. A lot of "if I do this I gain this which I can spend on this or this to do this or that..." etc which I enjoyed. I also fished a decent amount which was fun since there's a few different fishing options.
In my second game, I faced more farming-favoring objectives based on Tilled soil (you need to till spaces with squiggles ~ to plant crops in them) so went for that. This route also had some meaningful combo chains while I did the occasional mining or chopping or fishing. I also went for different scoring options (badges/projects) compared to my first game (where I prioritized season objectives).
In a multiplayer game, you have neighbor cards that usually specify a particular resource. If you choose to spend that resource on it, you can "gift" that resource to a neighbor who can spend it in the next neighbor phase. In solo, there's no free neighbor resources which feels a bit of a miss (but maybe easy to houserule in some way). You do still get rewards on your own neighbor track every time you clear a neighbor card.
Overall between the 2 games, I feel like I've explored a lot of the different things I would try to do in the game. So replayability for new experiences (beyond just wanting to experience it again if I'm in the mood for it) feels low for me.