Bomby: Codex Naturalis, Strategy Card Game, Easy to Learn, Addictive to Play, 2 to 4 Players, 25 Minute Play Time, for Ages 7 and up

Hands up if you bought this after playing it on Board Game Arena 🤚!Great low stakes, low energy game to play after a long day with a cuppa! My partner and I can play a number of games and it doesn’t feel overtaxing or too much. Wonderful filler game or just for relaxing! Made by the same company as Takenoko, another favourite of mine!Plays as a kind of scoring spatial puzzle with some nice end game point scoring options with various combos and special circumstances which adds a nice bit of mild crunch to this nice gaming snack!Rules are easy and concise. You’ll be up and playing in no time and easily play a few games your first time. Cards are mini, which is nice because it would be huge tableau otherwise! Speaking of which, I think the cards are lovely and the artwork is charming! The tin is also quite nice and all this for a very reasonable price! It has very good replay value and will be on top of my quick game and relaxation pile for some time! Definitely an under the radar get from Bombyx!

Codex Naturalis is a delightful little tile-drafting and tile-laying game. Acquiring resources and using them to play cards that score you points is fun and satisfying in the same way that Splendor was. This game has varying player goals, and a lovely visual/spatial puzzle on top of all of that, not to mention some of my favorite graphic design in any board game. The use of foil on the cards is really clean, and useful (everything that’s worth points is shiny).This is a great “gateway” game for players who may not have tried many modern hobby board games. It’s only a tiny step up in complexity from Azul, Kingdomino, or Splendor, but not any more complicated than Sagrada or Calico. Two thumbs up for Codex Naturalis.

Compré ésta versión porque me encanta el arte del juego, y la verdad pensé que podría contar con la caja metálica para que no sufriera daños la caja al transportarse, pero no fue así, soy de México hago contenido en YouTube de juegos de mesa y solo puedo decir que es una pena que mientan sobre el material del producto, es por ello que le pongo 2 estrellas, el juego es funcional y es lo mismo que supuestamente trae la de caja metálica. Una es una desgracia que devolverlo me llevaría más tiempo del que llegó, porque se supone que viene de UK

I have played it 10 times in 2 days. It hits all the things I liked about Splendor. Removes most of the stuff that seemed to waste time. The art is charming, the colors are clear, and the production seems better than the price point.If anyone sleeves, it uses 102 Mini American sleeves, and fits back in the tin. This will be in my collection for some time as it has little down time, easy to teach, and a simple joy to play repeatedly.

I am approaching a very stressful point in my life. So as part of my anxiety trip, I like to splurge on relaxing solo games that are mind numbing and meditative. When I have high anxiety levels and am mentally fatigued, I cannot mentally handle play games that I normally play for relaxation like Wingspan or even roll-and-write games like Floor Plan or Seven Bridges, because the sound of the dice clicking is irritating. The only game I have been able to play is Herbaceous. Which after several plays it not fun. So I bought Codex Naturalis.When I first saw this game previewed on Youtube, I thought it was some theme relating to wiccans. No offense to the wiccans out there, but I'm not so interested in that theme. Apparently, the theme is about a monk who is doing something with plants, animals, insects and fungi. Also, when I first heard about the game, I was not interested in small or simple games.Fast forward to today, I bought the game since other people online said it is a relaxing game. My copy did NOT come in a tin box. It is in a cardboard box. The cardboard box is pretty boring - I wish that there was gold printing on the outside.The rules are simple, but you could miss some details, some concepts are not covered or explained.Also, I wish the rulebook had GOLD on it too, because that would actually facilitate learning.1. Unfold the scoreboard onto the play area.2. Shuffle the GOLD deck and draw two cards next to it. These are available GOLD cards to take during play. THe GOLD deck has shimmery GOLD printing on the cards and it can have purple, blue, orange, green centers indicating insects, animals, fungi, and plants.3. Do the same with the Resource cards which look the same except they do not have GOLD shimmery printing on the backs. The backs, by the way, have a resource symbol at the center and empty corners. The front will lack the symbol but have at least one resource or item in the corner.I kid you not, I was confused by what a GOLD card was and what was NOT a gold card. Especially because the front of the resource card may or may not have GOLD printing. So it would have helped a lot if the rulebook had shimmery gold.4. Do the same for objective cards. Note, you never draw from this deck or the two open cards. So you could just return the deck to the box after players have drawn objectives and leave two objective cards in the play area. Objective cards have a cloud between two open hands on the back and the front has a number in a larger banner at the top.5. The rulebook says to give someone the first player marker. It's black. You will never pass around the first player marker. At the end, when someone triggers the end of the game, i.e. reaches 20 points, then the players finish the round and then everyone takes one more turn. So in a 3 player game, if player 2 triggers the end, player 3 takes a turn, then player 1, player 2, player 3 take another turn. The black first player marker can remind players who was first.6. Each player draws two cards from the resource deck, one card from the GOLD deck, and 2 cards from the Objective deck. They each decide which objective to keep and place the other card at the bottom of the Objective deck. OR you can just return the discarded Objective cards and the Objective deck to the box.I feel like maybe in game development they considered allowing objective cards to be drawn but removed that idea but did not clean up the rulebook. I mean, you could modify the game so you draw two objective cards and return one to the deck and that's your entire turn.How to play:1. place a card2. draw a card from one of the 4 face up resource or GOLD cards.That's it! The rulebook has rules on placement, like a card can never overlap more than 1 corner or the same card. A colored corner can never be covered by a white corner. But can a colored corner cover a colored corner? I don't know, the rulebook does not have that example. Also, I do not think it explicitly says that the cards cannot change orientation. My first play, I wanted to rotate the card 180 degrees. I do not think you can do that, because none of the examples showed it.A player can choose to place down the front or back of the card. The backs of the cards have 4 empty corners and one resource in the center. You would do this if you need more empty corners or you could meet GOLD card requirements located on the bottom of the front side.Each player also takes two tokens in their color, one for the scoreboard and the other to put on top of your starting card. The starting card has a front and a back. The front has four symbols in each corner. The back has at least one symbol in the center. I'm assuming you would pick the back because you might want a permanent symbol in the center. But the game requires you put a player marker on top of your starter card. This literally blocks the symbols. So what benefit would there be to ever chose the back? The purpose of this token on your starter card is so everyone remembers who is what color. It's not necessary and is just something adding to chaos. I just removed the second player tokens and added it to my stash of board game pieces. I added a photo of the starter cards (they're mostly white).The player board is also superfluous because you can just mentally keep track of your points. Lots of games do that. Plus, I just end up double checking my score on the scoreboard because sometimes I forget to add my points. So it's nice, but not 100% necessary. It's also a zig-zag scoreboard so sometimes I move the marker in the wrong direction. I wish they had printed the back side of the scoreboard as left-to-right so players can choose which side they prefer.The player cards are small. I find that these cards are extremely difficult to riffle shuffle. So you would need to sleeve all of the cards and do a mash shuffle, or pile shuffle, learn other shuffling techniques.The game has some unnecessary components - the board and the player tokens, the starter token. You really just need the cards. So you could just keep the cards in a deck box and take it to go!I would not play this game with limited table space. It can sprawl. So I do not recommend this for playing on an airplane or on a small table at a train station, etc. You could make it work, but then sometimes maybe you would not place a card in a location just because it would fall off the table at that point.The card artwork is nice, but I wish that the cards were all unique and that if you stuck the cards together, you could tell a story. I added pictures of the different artwork for each resource and objective cards which all have unique artwork.There is an official solo mode. Google Bombyx and Codex. In the solo mode you play against Tybor Kwelein. And you can also play the game for free on Board Game Arena (you need to create a free account), but for 2-4 players.I would recommend this game for people who enjoy a simple, aesthetically pleasing, nature-themed, relaxing solo game but also don't mind playing with other people. The game is abstract pattern matching, set-collection, open drafting.

Pensé que seria de cartón por las reviews en ingles pero me llego el verdadero el de metal.

Un muy buen juego, la calidad de las cartas es excelente y llamativa. La único es que se promociona como la edición que viene en caja de lata pero viene en caja de cartón.Es un juego tipo puzzle lo que reduce la interacción entre los jugadores y cada uno se centra en lograr sus objetivos. Muy buen juego y muy bonito cuando está desplegado en mesa.

A game of amazing components that create a beautiful table presence that is also filled with challenging, but not overall complex decisions. Light game for beginners yet deep enough for more experienced board gamers to want to play again!