Koinobori

The Game

Koinobori has a Japanese theme, but it is a game from Spain. Koinobori (koi-no-bo-ri, not koin-o-bo-ri) means carp streamer in Japanese and they refer to carp-shaped windsocks. They are flown on Children's Day, 5th of May. The game mechanism doesn't have much to do with the theme. This is a market manipulation game. You collect carps and manipulate their point values. When the game ends, you sum up the point values of your carps and the player with the most points wins. 

Every player has his own flag pole like this. You may collect up to three cards containing carps. Before you collect anything, your flag pole looks like this. You refer to the three icons at the bottom, which tell you what you are allowed to do. The three icons mean the number of cards you may take on your turn, the number of cards you may play, and your hand size. When you start collecting cards and attaching them to your flag pole, you cover your flag pole starting from the bottom, covering the icons. As you do this you refer to the next set of icons which are still visible. Your abilities improve as you collect cards and cover the lowest set of icons. 

There is space at the centre of the table for five columns of cards. These are the common flag poles where everyone can play cards. Each flag pole has space for five cards. The game ends when all five flag poles are full. At each flagpole, only a single carp colour with the most carps wins and will score points. In the case of ties, both the highest colours are disqualified, and the second highest colour wins instead. If there is a tie for second place, then they too get disqualified and the third highest colour wins instead, and so on. This is a little convoluted, and the outcome can be quite unexpected. 

In the photo above, that row on the far right is card market. This is where you take cards from. You may only take cards from the top or the bottom. The market is not refilled immediately from the draw deck. You only refill when the market drops to a specific the number of cards. 

On your turn your options are to take cards from the market, play cards to the common flag poles, or play cards to your personal flag pole. Some cards have special powers which are triggered when they are played to a common flag pole, e.g. you get to take additional cards, or you can move a card from one common flag pole to another. 

Carps come in 6 different colours. There are only five common flag poles. When the game ends, all six colours will have a specific value. At least one colour won't score. The point value will not be zero. It is -3 instead. This can be quite scary. If you have carps in that colour, every carp is -3. These cards above are reminders for which colours are still -3. They are flipped over when the corresponding colours score, i.e. win at one of the common flag poles. 

At this point I have played two cards to my personal flag pole. Once you play a card here, you are committed and may not change or remove it. The card is played face-down so your opponents do not know which carps you have. The advantage of committing early is you enhance your abilities. The downside is the board situation may still change drastically, and you might be committing to colours which eventually turn out to be duds. 

The Play

This is a stock market manipulation game. Everyone can influence which colours score. This is like a horse racing game. At every common flag pole only one colour will win. A colour may win at two or more flag poles. As you try to manipulate which colours win, you have to bet on the colours too, hoping you bet on the biggest winners, and not on any of the losers. After you have committed to certain colours, you will want to do your best to help them. If you can guess what colours your opponents are committed to, you want to sabotage those colours. Sometimes there may be others who have vested interests in the same colours as you do. Here you can collaborate. This is what Koinobori is, so it's not very complicated. The challenge comes in the cards available to you. You don't have that many choices when taking cards. There are six colours and you may not always have the chance to take a colour you like. Sometimes they don't show up, sometimes others take them. Sometimes you need to go with the flow and change tact. 

These were my carps at game end. I went with red, yellow and green. 

It's a card game but it takes up much table space. 

The Thoughts

Koinobori is a mid-weight strategy game. It has secret betting and race manipulation. Everyone can manipulate the race so your control is limited. You have to observe how others play and try to make use of that. If you can invest in colours others are already working on, you can save some effort. Sometimes you have to push for the colours only you have invested in and no one else, because that gives you a unique edge which others do not have. When the time is right, it is also good to sabotage your opponents' colours. 

The game felt a little complicated when I started playing, but once I understood the underlying concept, it's not that complicated. The only part I wasn't very comfortable with was the tiebreaking at the common flag poles. I felt it would be a poor experience for the two leading players who had been fighting over a flag pole, when their colours tied, and the victory went to a third colour on which minimal effort was spent. It would be frustrating. However, in practice, this didn't seem to happen often. So maybe my worry was unnecessary. When players play cards to the common flag pole, they know exactly what the outcome will be after the cards are played, so the victory going to a third unexpected colour would be what the active player deliberately chooses to do.