Lines in the Landscape: Hedgerows in Meadowvale

The UK has hedgerows that are hundreds of years old. As natural landscapes have been cultivated over time, the patchwork of fields and woodland we know today has emerged, dissected by long, branching hedgerows. There are thousands of miles of them, they form a crucial corridor network for wildlife and many are protected. They connect woodland, they cross farmland, and they create 'edge' habitats: vital hunting grounds for owls, birds of prey, foxes and badgers.

For Meadowvale to work as a game, the board had to build like a real place. When you place a tile in Meadowvale, you're shaping a landscape. Hedgerows grow in long lines. Rivers flow naturally. Village tiles only form small clusters. That’s because every terrain type has gentle placement rules or hidden incentives that push the board toward something that feels natural. By the time the map is full, it looks like somewhere you could walk through.

So the first terrain type that was designed is one of the most striking features of the British countryside: the hedgerow.

In the game, hedgerows shelter hedgehogs and rabbits. When placed in a hedgerow, these animals cannot be scored by owls or foxes. Badgers, however, are an exception. They are omnivores, foraging along hedgerows for insects and worms. They will also prey on rabbits and are the only natural predator of hedgehogs. In the game, Badgers can score from rabbits and hedgehogs even when they’re in a hedgerow, mirroring real world behaviours.

Players are incentivised to grow hedgerows that mimic real world ones. Rabbits and hedgehogs score points equal to the full length of the connected hedgerow they occupy. That means longer continuous hedgerows offer the most reward. But the more you grow a hedgerow, the more tempting it becomes to other players — especially if someone is holding a badger.

So there’s a story in every hedge: prey animals seeking shelter and scoring safety in numbers, badgers following them in the undergrowth.