5-Minute One Piece

I feel pressured when I write about 5-Minute One Piece, because I feel reading my post should not take more than 2 minutes. This is a real-time game that is played in 5-minutes when you have four players. With a different player count, the time limit is adjusted. Your goal is to defeat all enemies in the enemy deck before time runs out. 

Every player picks a character, and you take the deck of cards for that character. Every character has a special ability, and the deck also differs from other decks. There are some character-specific power cards in your deck. 

Some of the characters in the game

The game board is a pirate ship. You will play cards here. There will be four stacks of cards. You play cards here to match the topmost fight card of the fight deck. The fight deck is that deck of cards above the ship, each card showing four icons. This is a real-time game, and everyone has a hand limit of five cards. Whenever you play a card, you may immediately draw a new one. You can play cards from your hand to any slot on the ship at any time. You want to have the cards on the ship match the top fight card exactly. Then you get to claim the fight card. You claim fight cards to defeat the active enemy. You have a deck of enemy cards, and you always reveal the top card. Enemies require a certain number of fight cards to defeat. Some enemies have special powers. You win by defeating all enemies before time runs out. 

After you claim a fight card, the next one becomes visible. The cards you have played on the ship remain. If some of them match the new card, then you are lucky and you need less effort to claim the next fight card. 

Your personal deck is finite. If you run out, you don't reshuffle to form a new deck. If you don't have the right card, you can still play useless cards for the sake of drawing new cards, but your deck is a resource you try not to waste. 

That one on the right is a power card unique for your character. When you get such cards, you can place them on the table next to your character card, and you may use them at any time. They don't clog your hand. I should have five cards. When you are busy sometimes you forget to draw cards. 

This is the enemy boss for one of the scenarios. The game comes with many scenarios. Each scenario is a deck of enemies. Note the crosshairs icon on this boss. What this means is if you have a blue (chat) icon which matches the fight card, you can play an additional blue icon on the same spot to claim the fight card, without needing to match the other three icons. 

This is a real-time game so I can't take photos while playing. This was the end of a game. 

Some of the enemies. Some have special powers. 

These are some of the scenarios in the game. 

If you are reading this blog, this game is probably not for you. This is not a gamer's game. This is almost a children's game. This game is made for casual players and non-gamers. I can imagine people who like One Piece will be thrilled by this. It's very easy to play. It's short. So many elements of the TV series are present in the game. The game was originally 5-Minute Dungeon. I think it's great that it is turned into a One Piece game. It will attract people to play boardgames. 

I hope you finished reading this in less than 2 minutes. 

Yokai Hyakki Hakko (Festival of Monsters)

Yokai Hyakki Hakko is a game from… you guessed it… Japan! This is a small box card game about collecting monsters and ghouls from Japanese lore. There are eight types of monster cards. You will be collecting them. If you manage to collect all eight types, you win immediately. If no one manages that, the game ends when the deck runs out. You determine who wins by points. For each type of monster, if you have the most, each card is worth 1 point to you. There are five cards in each type, so you need three to be sure you’ll score. 

Everyone has a hand of exactly one card. On your turn you draw a card then play a card. This is almost a gold standard for simple Japanese card games. Love Letter works like this too. When you play a card, your place it in front of you, adding to your collection of monsters. You also activate the power of that card. Every monster type has a different power. Some let you steal a card from another player. Some let you exchange a card with another player. Some let you draw an extra card. One monster lets you swap all cards of one type with an opponent. This can be devastating if your opponent has collected multiple cards of the same type. 

There is a lot of attacking in this game. Most cards are offensive in nature. Everyone’s collection is public information. If you are close to winning, others will work together to stop you. So it is not easy to collect eight types of monsters. 

The game is light and short. This is the kind of game that works well with the casual crowd. It is almost a party game. 

10 to Leave

This game will probably always be called the mosquito game. This is a game from Taiwan, and players play the role of mosquito families trying to attack a sleeping guy and then escape without getting squashed. I certainly have not played any other game with this premise. 

Everyone starts with the same set of cards with exactly the same distribution. The only difference is the card colour. Cards represent mosquitoes. You will be playing cards to sting the sleeping guy. He will be waken up several times during the night and he will try to kill some of you mosquitoes, either with his bare hands or using something nearby he can grab. Some mosquitoes might get killed. Some will make a lucky escape. You play until everyone has played all their cards. You don't score points for the mosquitoes that managed to escape. Instead, you score negative points for those that are killed. The player with the least negative points wins. 

This poor guy is going to get very upset and won't be getting much sleep.

Cards are valued 1 to 6, and when a mosquito is killed, you lose points based on the card value. It is very painful to have your 6 killed. Notice that the 3's, 4's, and one of the 5's have a dot below the number. These cards are marked on the back. When you play one of these cards, your opponents know it is between 3 to 5. 

Some cards have icons on the back

A round of play is set up by placing a random weapon next to the sleeping guy. Let's call him Sam. Depending on how Sam is waken up, he might use the weapon to kill you. The weapon specifies the positions of the mosquitoes which will be killed. In this photo above, you can see the positions are I and III. In one of these rows, if your card is in positions I or III, it is at risk of getting killed. 

You will be playing cards into rows next to Sam, almost like queuing up. You will be able to manipulate the rows too. 

What you do on your turn is simple. Refer to the bottom half of this reference sheet above. You will definitely have to play a card, but there is one other action you can take. You may peek at another card, which can be done before or after you play a card. You can also move the first card in a queue to the back. This too can be done before or after you play a card. The third option is to wake Sam up. That means he's going to try to kill some mosquitoes. You can do this only if all the queues have at least 2 cards, and you can only do this before you play a card. 

When Sam wakes up, there are three possible outcomes for each of the queues. Refer to the top half of the reference sheet. You resolve the queues one at a time, revealing the cards one by one until the total reaches or exceeds 10, or until all the cards are revealed. If the total is less than 10, Sam kills the biggest mosquito or mosquitoes by hand, and the rest escape. If the total is exactly 10, the mosquitoes get lucky and they all escape. If the total exceeds 10, Sam uses his weapon and kills according to the weapon. Lucky mosquitoes are removed. Dead mosquitoes are placed before the owners so that you can keep track of your negative points. Sometimes there are unrevealed mosquitoes. These are now shifted to the front of the queues. 

This mosquito game is actually a queuing game! Almost like a guillotine game, because Sam is probably going to kill some mosquitoes. When you play this game you will feel like telling all your mosquito family members, "Survive! Survive!" Playing your 6 is always nerve-wracking. Should you play it early to get it out of the way? I think many people will be tempted to do that. You can collaborate with others to make those perfect 10's. You can talk about your numbers. But can you trust your opponents? Afterall, they are still your opponents. Also even if you line up a few cards to make a perfect 10, you can't stop some other uninvolved fella from moving the first card in the queue, messing everything up. 

10 to Leave teeters between giving you control and putting you at the mercy of other players. You have limited information because you don't know what cards your opponents have played. However you know the marked cards are 3 to 5. Also as the game progresses, you can card count. You get to peek at cards, and that's important information. This helps in making those perfect 10's. Yet you never know when someone else will move a card and spoil your plans. There are two ways Sam wakes up. A player can wake him up, or he wakes up when all queues have four cards. You try your best to position your cards well in anticipation for all queues getting full. However there is always a possibility of a player waking Sam before that. There are several tactics in the game. I like that balance between giving you control and subjecting you to the whims of others. There are skills to this. Also I believe the game experience can vary depending on the group you play with. Some groups may share more information and try to collaborate. Some may be secretive. Some may choose to lie about their cards. That creates a different dynamic. Overall this is still a simple and short game. I hear this game is doing well in Taiwan, and I can certainly see why. 

Plantful Life

Plantful Life is a roll and write game from Taiwan. You take care of a plant and you nurture it to grow and bloom. The game comes with six different plants, and they need to be taken care of differently. At the end of the game, you will score points in several ways, including how much your plant has grown, how many flowers it has, and how many butterflies it has attracted.

The game is played over 10 rounds. One card is drawn in the first round, two cards in the second round, and so on. You use the numbers on the cards to fill your player board. You can only use at most three cards, so from the fourth round onwards you have more options, but you are still limited to just three cards. There is only one card numbered 1, two cards numbered 2, and so on. This is something to take into account as you plan how to fill your player board. Small numbers are rarer.

You may have multiple pots. They are represented by the brown boxes. Numbers in every pot must be different. Plants grow from pots upwards. Boxes that grow from the same pot can only be filled with the same number. Pink and red boxes are small and large flowers respectively. They are worth more points than regular boxes. Also they are important for attracting butterflies. Wherever butterflies are drawn, players compare flowers. Whoever has the most ticks the same number of butterflies on their player sheet. Others who have fewer flowers tick fewer. Butterflies on your player board score points at game end based on their number squared. 

You have two player boards. One is the plant and the other is your workshop. Filling spaces at your workshop gives you special abilities. Each track can only be filled with increasing numbers. Normally you want to start with low numbers to make it easier to continue to fill them. One track lets you unlock gates at your plant. There are boxes you cannot proceed past unless you have done unlocking. There’s one powerful ability which lets you grow every pot once. If your plant has many pots (like this one above), this ability is very helpful. One ability gives you an extra number every round, which is very handy. However to gain this ability you need to have filled in the third box on the track. This is worth the trouble if you do it early. At late game there is not enough ROI. 

You can see several familiar elements if you have played other roll and write games. I like how different the plants are and how you will choose different powers that work better with them. I like that by using a card deck, the probabilities of drawing each number are customised as opposed to being equal and random. And a card deck has “memory”. You can card count. Playing the game is a pleasant experience. You feel clever when you utilise your workshop abilities well to grow your plant. I’ve never been a fan of roll and write games. The only one I truly enjoy and remember fondly is Draft & Write Records. Maybe it’s the theme. I must say Plantful Life is not radically different. However I enjoy it a lot. It is a little like a solo game since the butterflies is the only aspect that you need to compete in. I like how peaceful and pleasant the play experience is. The art certainly contributes to that. And I’m not even a gardening guy. 

Two of the plant types...

... and how they are presented in the game

New Old

New Old is a game from Japan. What stands out the most about it is the box design. It is deliberately designed to look like two boxes side-by-side, one brand new and the other one pretty old and worn. The cards inside and the rules are like this too. Some cards are normal, but others look like old cards at different levels of wear and tear. The rules come in two sheets, and one of them is made to look like an old and battered sheet.

The concept is simple, but interesting. Everyone starts with a hand of cards. You will discard some cards before you start. Throughout the game you will play cards. You want to play (discard) many of your old cards because any that you don't score you negative points. You want to play as few of your new cards as possible, because they score positive points. There is one special situation of playing all of your old cards. If this happens, then your new cards will score negative points instead. So you have to keep at least one old card.

From the card backs you can easily tell which are new and which are old

There are two discard piles set up

Each player tracks his own status. You go through two stages. In the first you play cards to the old card pile, and then in the second you play to the new card pile. Different players may exit each stage at different times. That is normal. The cards are numbered 1 to 6. You can play a card if it is the same number or one higher than the current top card. 6 cycles to 1. If the top card is a 6, you may play a 6 or a 1. You must play a card if you are able to. You may exit the first stage when you are not able to play any of your old cards. You reveal your remaining old cards before you and enter the second stage. In the second stage, you hope play as few of your new cards as possible because they are worth points. You can only exit when you are not able to play any card. These remaining cards are revealed before you and the round ends for you. You have to wait for everyone else to end their rounds. Once everyone is done, calculate points based on the diamond icons on your cards.

I have certainly played other games where you play cards of the same number or one higher. So this part of the game is not new. Despite the simplicity, there are some nuances to discover. I find that the first two cards you must discard must be considered carefully. Generally you want to be able to play as many of your old cards as possible, and as few of your new cards as possible. That means it is probably better to have all the numbers in your old cards. It also means with your new cards, you hope to have large gaps, so that you will soon be unable to play. Knowing this, you make decisions on how to discard your initial cards. You start with 7 each of old and new, and you must discard one each.

If you look at my hand above, having old cards in only two values is bad news. If the pile shows 1, 2 or 6, I will be forced to exit stage 1, and all those 4's and 5's will be negative points. 

Look how badly damaged they look

I think your tactics will change depending on the number of players. The number of the piles might increase more quickly if there are more players. If the number of the old pile goes past a number you have before it is your turn, you need to wait a whole cycle before you can play that card. You might not last till the next opportunity. Knowing this, sometimes you want to deliberately advance the number, attempting to mess up your opponents' plans. 

In one of the rounds I played, these were the cards I scored. I scored every single card! I was not able to play any of my cards. This was rather extreme. Thankfully the new cards I had were worth more points than my old cards. 

I am not entirely sure yet how deep this game is. I have certainly discovered some interesting tactics. I don't know whether these are all, and once I discover them, there is an optimal way to play. Not that they will guarantee victory, just that from a probability standpoint there are some best ways to play. Even so, this is fun to play. There is some luck and uncertainty. You have meaningful decisions to make. I really enjoy this kind of clever card games from Japan. This game designer Takuya Iwamura did all the art himself too. 

A shoe print! 

Even the box insert has been deliberately designed to look half new and half old

Dog Poker

Dog Poker is first in a series of animal poker games from Japan by Kaya Miyano. I bought both Dog Poker and Cat Poker when traveling, and only later realised I already own Cat Poker. Cat Poker is the original Japanese version of Panda Panda. Although named poker, neither game is similar to poker. Or maybe animals play poker differently. 

In Dog Poker every card is a dog. There are seven species, and the number of cards is different for the species. Some are common, some are rare. You collect cards using a draft and pass mechanism much like 7 Wonders. All cards are dealt out to the players at the start of a game. Every round you must pass some cards to your neighbour. In the first round you pass four cards, and every round this reduces. By the fourth and last round, you only pass one card. Then you do scoring based on the cards you have. 

I need to turn back the clock and talk about what happens before you start passing cards. Every card in the game, in addition to being a dog, also has two scoring criteria. One specifies the point value of a single dog. The other specifies the point value of a specific combination of dogs. At the start of the game, everyone chooses one card from their hand to be used for scoring at the end. That means everyone knows one specific scoring card and can prepare accordingly. At the start of every round, one scoring card is revealed. As the game progresses, players will have more and more information about which dogs and which combinations will score.

You will play several games in succession, until someone reaches 100 points. The player with the highest total score is the ultimate winner.

Playing this game is about deciding which cards and combinations to go for. You start with limited information so you can only make guesses. Combinations are attractive. When you try to make a combination, you are taking a gamble that your neighbour will pass you the cards you need. The cards your neighbour passes to you can be important information to help you guess what kind of combinations he is trying to make, and this which cards he will or will not pass to you. Choosing which cards to pass to your other neighbour can be quite a dilemma. You don’t want to unwittingly give him cards which help him score big, but if you keep a card which you think is critical, you might be forced to pass a card which is also useful to you. 

One funny situation we had was Chen Rui managing a huge combo at the end of the third round. That combo needed all seven cards. We still had a fourth round to play, which meant she must pass one of her cards. Her only hope was to get back the same card from her other neighbour. Unfortunately for her, that did not happen. She would’ve won the game if she received the right card.

I think this game should be played with exactly four. With fewer players, you need to create dumb bots to play for the missing players. They are just stacks of cards sitting between human players which you randomly draw cards from or insert cards into. When playing with bots you lose some player interaction. 

Similo

Similo is a cooperative card game that is doing well. There are many different decks with different themes and characters. So far I have played three of them. In this game one player is the clue giver and the rest are guessers. A grid of 4x3 is laid out. One of these cards is a secret goal which only the clue giver knows. The clue giver needs to provide information to the rest so that they can eventually identify the secret goal. 

Let’s take the historical figures deck as an example. All the cards in the deck are historical figures. The clue giver has a hand of cards. He has to play a card in order to give hints to the others. If a card is played normally, then it shares something in common with the secret goal. However if it is played sideways, then there’s something about it that’s different from the secret goal. Let’s say I’m the clue giver and the secret goal is Napoleon. I can play a female character sideways. I can play a military leader upright. I can play an Asian leader sideways. There are many aspects to every character. The hint I intend to give may not be interpreted correctly by the guessers. In the first round they must remove one character. In the second round two, then three, then four. By then they will have more clues. You can cross check the hints. Some will make you realise an earlier interpretation was incorrect. Every time you remove a character, if it is the secret goal, you lose immediately. 

There is a nice build-up. You must remove more and more characters. It is challenging for the clue giver to give hints well. The guessers need to discuss and debate ideas. The finale is always exciting. There will be only two cards left, and you must pick one. You may have many clues by then, but this last character likely has many similarities to the secret goal. That is why it has not been removed up to that point. 

This is the animal version

Ghosts and ghouls

All our clues were "not similar to"

It is satisfying to win. It is also fun when you lose. You will be asking the clue giver what his clues mean. This is the kind of game through which you get to know your friends better. You get to know how they think.