Grassvasion
Save the Saguaros is a semi-cooperative worker placement game where 3-4 players take on asymmetric roles as community members fighting to protect the Sonoran Desert ecosystem from invasive buffelgrass. A rancher, a park ranger, a scientist, and an activist must balance personal objectives with collective goals, managing the spread of invasive grass and fires while unlocking new resources like science, technology, and policy that improve the community’s shared capacity to manage the invasion. The first player to reach 10 Influence points wins the game, but if fire reaches the central saguaro cactus, everyone loses, emphasizing that individual success is meaningless without protecting the shared ecosystem.
Learn to Play Grassvasion
As part of the Resilience Grant and in conjunction with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum’s annual Save our Saguaros Month (https://desertmuseum.org/buffelgrass/), we will be hosting a series of game events in February 2026 for people in the community to learn how to play Grassvasion. Participants will have a chance to win a free, limited “Arizona Institutes for Resilience” edition of the board game. See below for a list of scheduled events.
Scheduled Events
- Tuesday, February 17, 6-9 pm: Tucson Games and Gadgets (Park Place Mall location)
- Friday, Feb 20, 6-9 pm: Tucson Games and Gadgets (Marana location)
- Friday, Feb 27, 6-9 pm: Tucson Games and Gadgets (Tucson Mall location)
If you would like to learn to play the game but can’t attend one of our game nights, contact Dr. Baldwin at elizabethb@arizona.edu. Our team can come to your neighborhood game night, coffee shop, or workplace to teach you how to play the game and leave you with a copy or two. We are especially interested in sharing the game with people who work in conservation in Pima County.
About Grassvasion
Grassvasion was designed by Ryan Rowitt, a Tucson-based game designer, and Liz Baldwin, a UA professor, to help people understand the real-world problem of invasive grasses in the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert, the world’s most biodiverse desert ecosystem, is dominated by the endemic and endangered saguaro cactus, a keystone species that provides food, water, and shelter to over 100 desert birds, animals, and insects. Saguaros are also culturally important. They are beloved by artists as a symbol of the American West, and to the indigenous O’Odham people, saguaros (or Ha:sañ) are seen as living relatives and ancestors.
Buffelgrass is an African plant that was introduced to the Sonoran Desert almost 100 years ago as cattle forage. Today, buffelgrass is widespread throughout the desert. And where buffelgrass spreads, wildfires follow. Historically, the Sonoran Desert was considered nearly fire-proof, because native vegetation was too sparse to fuel large wildfires. Today, buffelgrass provides the perfect fuel for fires. After each fire, the buffelgrass will grow back even stronger, while native plants like the saguaro will die and may never return. Without action to save the saguaros, this desert ecosystem will one day become a grassland.