Have you ever wanted to throw in your day job and take to a life on the land?
Well now is your chance … well sort of.

Each player takes on the role of a bean farmer trying to eke out a living. Each farmer has two bean fields in which they must plant different bean crops.

The game offers a total of 11 bean varieties to form those crops including green beans, soy beans, black eyed beans and stink beans, just to name a few.

The number of each bean type in the deck is not equal but the total number is printed clearly on each card. The rarer the bean type, the greater the payout in gold (Thaler) when you harvest that crop.

This information is outlined using a beanometer at the bottom of each card. The beanometer outlines how much gold can be earned for harvesting a certain number of beans of that type.

For example you must have at least four coffee beans in a crop before you can harvest them to earn one Thaler.

But if you can plant and harvest a crop of 12 coffee beans you will earn four Thaler.
The back of each card has a Thaler symbol and players simply add these to their gold pile as they earn income.

At the end of the game the player who has acquired the most Thaler is declared the winner.

The challenge in Bohnanza is in deciding how long to hold onto crops as each field can only hold one bean type at a time.

Harvesting too early could result in missed income.
Holding on too long and not acquiring more of that bean could also mean missing out on other lucrative opportunities.

Bohnanza is also a unique card game because the order of cards in a players hand cannot be altered.

At the start of a player's turn they must plant one or two beans but these must come from the extreme right of your hand.

If the next card in your hand does not match the two bean crops in your fields, then you will be forced to harvest one of them prematurely and this may mean that you earn no gold at all, so clever planning is essential.

To help, players are also allowed to trade cards each turn. This allows people to make mutually beneficial trades and possibly offload beans that would ruin their crops.

Bohnanza is fun, has great artwork and offers a unique playing style. But Bohnanza's best feature is it's social play with up to eight people able to play.