Superbloom

The brief

Superbloom is a competitive tile-placement game built around a real thing. Every few years, California’s wet winters produce a superbloom, a sudden carpet of wildflowers that pulls butterflies from hundreds of miles. The butterflies arrive, the flowers compete with each other for sun and space, and the most successful plants are the ones the butterflies chose.

In Superbloom (the game), the players are the butterflies. You don’t grow flowers, you bet on which ones will grow most by placing them on the table. If you and another butterfly pick the same plant, you split the score. The game runs three rounds, and each round ends in a super bloom event where every tile flips over to reveal what actually bloomed.

It was built with Josh Hirshfield, Phil Robiverl, and Diganta Ghorai for the NYU Game Center 2022 Winter Showcase, and shown again at the 2023 Parkade at Willoughby Walks.

The approach

The reveal at the end of each round, every tile flipping at once to show what actually bloomed, was the moment we built the rest of the game around. The placements during the round are bets. The reveal is the payoff.

To keep prediction interesting we layered in two systems. The first is the shared-pick punishment: if multiple butterflies bet on the same plant, the points split, which keeps the table reading each other’s intentions. The second is the seeded reward: instead of playing a flower face-up to use its power, you can plant it face-down, a hidden bet that pays out at the end.

The work

We built and reworked the prototype across the semester. Most of the iteration was on the balance between using a flower’s special power face-up and seeding it face-down. Early decks had too many face-down options, which made the game feel like a long wait.

Two pages of how-to-play and a short summary card per player. The intention was to teach the game in under five minutes, and to have the first superbloom quickly.

I illustrated the deck. Each flower has its own card art, the deck pulls from real California wildflower species; the illustrations are slightly stylised to keep the read clear at a glance. There is also a wild card that can be played as any plant.

Superbloom was shown at the NYU Game Center 2022 Winter Showcase and at the 2023 Parkade at Willoughby Walks. Families loved playing it and we were surprised that even children picked up the game easily.