In addition to being Board Game Quest’s self-professed film individual, I additionally put on quite a lot of different hats across the workplace. I delight myself on being the workforce’s self-professed plant individual (“That’s a Ficus, Tony, not a Fir.”) and am typically astonished when anybody questions my self-professed mastery of handcrafts (“Macrame is done by hand, not with crochet hooks, Brandon.”)

One factor I don’t get an opportunity to speak about a lot is my superior information of the animal kingdom, specifically the creatures who stay in water. So, as BGQ’s newly anointed (and but nonetheless self-professed) ichthyologist, I jumped on the probability to check out Kohaku from designer and artist Danny Devine. The sport is for 1-4 pond-builders and performs in a couple of half hour.

Gameplay Overview:

Kohaku is a drafting and tile placement sport through which gamers will likely be constructing their very own private koi pond and scoring factors primarily based on how stunning it’s. (This is set principally by adjacency bonuses, which in actual life wouldn’t final very lengthy since fish have a tendency to maneuver round so much.). Each flip, gamers will take two adjoining tiles from the principle pond board. The board is ready up in a manner in order that two fish can by no means be a taken, nor can two characteristic tiles. Therefore, gamers will take one in all every on their flip and add them to their very own private play space (er, pond). There aren’t any placement restrictions when you’ve taken the tiles as long as they’re positioned orthogonally adjoining to a beforehand positioned piece.

There are 12 kinds of fish with some being a stable coloration and others being multicolored. Some fish even have a coin icon on them that can rating a degree on the finish of the sport. The characteristic tiles will rating on the finish of the sport for the fish round them relying on varied components equivalent to the colour of the koi or the variety of dragonflies on the tiles. (Except the turtle characteristic tiles. Those sneaky turtles simply provide you with factors for no good purpose.)

At the tip of a participant’s flip, they are going to refill one koi and one characteristic onto the pond board, and that is Kohaku’s most modern characteristic. Tiles are all the time added to the pond board within the heart so something already there should transfer to the periphery. This modifications up the pairs accessible to gamers on future turns.

The sport additionally features a solo mode and it really works properly sufficient (the automated rival takes its tiles blind from a stack and scores units), though I’m unsure it’s one thing I’d need to come again to typically.

Those are primarily all the foundations for the sport. Kohaku lasts 12 rounds in a three- or four-player sport and 14 rounds in a two-player sport after which gamers will flip over the pond board to disclose the scoreboard and tally up their factors to see whose pond proved most point-worthy.

Game Experience:

I’ll begin proper off by saying that Kohaku is breezy and enjoyable. It strikes me as the proper sort of sport to play after brunch whereas on trip earlier than you go sightseeing someplace. (That’s a really particular suggestion however I’m sticking by it.)

Mechanically the sport is sound and the whole lot appears very balanced when it comes to tile availability however there isn’t a lot of a spark to it past its visible enchantment. I really feel like I’ve performed this sport earlier than, loved it again then, and fully forgot about the entire expertise.

The sport’s major stress of weighing the percentages of gathering the precise fish you want primarily based on the drawing board is efficient however at decrease participant counts the drawing board doesn’t change sufficient to make it notably tense and at greater participant counts the board will change so drastically in between turns that it’s troublesome to essentially plan too far forward. Again, these are minor gripes for what’s deliberately a easy and clear design.

And truthfully? The ponds look so cool on the finish of the sport that it actually does really feel like every participant has completed one thing distinctive regardless of who truly is forward on the scoreboard. (Incidentally, the sport has a kind of “flip over a different component once you’re ready to start taking score” boards and I all the time get pleasure from these however this one comes with tiny fish to trace the scores and so they transfer round this board so much.)

Final Thoughts:

Kohaku could be the barest bones tiling sport I’ve performed in fairly a while. If it sounds such as you’ve performed a sport like this earlier than you most likely have and nothing particular within the sport feels terribly modern. Even the mildly attention-grabbing manner the pond board is reset each flip doesn’t actually matter a lot strategically. It simply varies the accessible tiles.

That being stated there’s actually a spot for video games like this on the planet. It performs extremely quick and can work with quite a lot of completely different play teams. It’s enjoyable, appears nice as soon as your pond is completed on the finish of the sport, and even has a number of irritating choices as gamers resolve which scoring avenues to go after and which tiles to draft. If you’re an enormous fan of this kind of sport, I’m satisfied you’ll love Kohaku. Unfortunately, in case you’re that large of a fan of this kind of sport it’s very possible you have got a sport that’s almost similar to it already.

Final Score: 3 stars – A light-weight, enjoyable expertise that doesn’t introduce something notably new.

Hits:
• Easy to show and play
• Games play rapidly
• Great artwork and the ponds look neat on the finish of the sport

Misses:
• Nothing new right here
• Not a lot room for long run planning
• The fish scoreboard equipment isn’t nice