Haratama

Haratama is a trick-taking game from Japan with a horror theme and great art. Every round, three card values are randomly drawn to become the penalty values for the round. That means if you win these cards you will be penalised. This is a game about scoring as few points as possible. Points are bad. 

Most standard trick-taking rules apply. You must follow suit if you can. There is a trump suit. However you are not allowed to lead with a trump card until someone has played a trump card. In the game story, the trump suit represents the demon, which is initially sealed and suppressed. However at some point when the first trump card is played in a trick led by a regular card, the seal breaks and the demon is freed. 

Every penalty card you win gets you a point, which is bad. However if you manage to win at least 8 out of 12 penalty cards, the demon possesses you. You become one. Now everyone else gets points instead. This, of course, is no easy feat. 

That’s basically it. What is interesting is how the penalty values will differ from round to round. You will need to adjust how you play depending on whether they are large or small, and how many of them you have in hand. 

Card backs - so scary!

This is a pretty clean design that’s quite close to standard trick-taking. The small twist that it offers is fun and viable. I have a soft spot for games which allow you to shoot the moon. One minor problem we had was with the font style. We thought the 8 was a 0. 

Torchlit

 

I have been playing many trick-taking games lately. I am not specifically a fan of the genre, but I don't dislike it either. If anyone suggests a trick-taking game, I'm usually happy to play. Torchlit is a trick-taking game which emphasises making predictions. Based on your starting hand, you secretly choose one card as your torch. This number is your prediction about how many tricks you will win. This card is kept until the final trick, when you have only two cards remaining. You have the option of playing this card normally and use your other remaining card as your torch, i.e. your prediction about the number of tricks you have won. 

Eight dungeon tiles are laid out like this. Every player gets a pretty wooden pawn. The dungeon tiles are just for recording how many tricks you have won so far. Everyone starts on the left, which means 0 tricks. The max is 7 tricks, and if you win more than 7 tricks, you circle back to the 0 space. Cards placed below the dungeon tiles are important. They are worth points. For every trick played, the winner advances his pawn. Some or possibly all of the cards in the trick will be added to dungeons based on the card values. For each suit, only one card will be added. If there are multiple cards in the same suit, it is the player with the lowest numbered card (not necessarily the weakest or the loser) who decides which card gets added. Having played the lowest card can be a powerful position. 

Most other trick-taking rules are pretty standard. You must follow suit if you can. There is a trump suit - red (called dragon). When a trick is lead by red, you don't have to follow suit. This is different from other games. Normally only cards in the lead suit can win. That, of course, is overwritten by trump suit cards. That's standard. One more exception is that for the very last trick, you don't have to follow suit. This is the trick where you take your torch back and you may switch your torch - the prediction about where your pawn will end up. 

You play three rounds and add up your points

The reference cards have different art but the content is the same

You can refer to the reference card above to understand how scoring works. At the end of a round, if your torch card is correct (matches the position of your pawn), you score 3 points. Else, that torch is added to the corresponding dungeon, and it becomes worth 2 points for any opponent(s) there. At each dungeon tile, trump cards are worth 2 points, and regular cards 1 point. You score points for where your pawn is. If players share the same location, they must share the points there too, rounded down. 

Throughout the round you are manipulating how many points each dungeon tile is worth, and you are also manipulating the positions of everyone's pawn. You have made a prediction, and getting it right certainly helps, but sometimes depending on how the round goes, you may intentionally get it wrong because some dungeon tiles are worth doing it. Or if you have a better backup torch in hand, work towards that. You want to move your opponents to the same tiles, so that they are forced to share points. You want to stay away from others, so that you don't have to share. 

This is almost like a market manipulation game, because you are constantly adjusting the values of the dungeon tiles. Low cards can be good because they help you control which cards are added to dungeons. Your choice of suit affects whether more cards are added to dungeons. You don't know exactly which dungeon tile you will end up on, and you do your best to control that. 

Torchlit, despite the great-looking components, doesn't stray far from standard trick-taking mechanisms. I feel this is a game you play in a calculative way. More meticulous accountant than monster-fighting warrior. 

Railroad Tiles

Railroad Tiles is from the same designer duo who also brought us Railroad Ink and Dragon Castle. A quick way to describe the game is advanced Carcassonne. This is a tile laying game, and you get to place meeples. But this is not a fair way to introduce the game at all. Say this to people who already like Carcassonne to hook them. This game has its own place and in many ways is different. 

First of all, you don't add tiles to a central map and grow that map together. Instead, everyone has their own little map before them. Every round, several sets of tiles will be set up (see above), and in turn order, you claim one set to add to your own map. The sets don't have the same number of tiles. The tiles have different features. Players will value the sets differently. When choosing a set, you are also deciding the turn order for the next round. Whoever takes the leftmost set goes first next round.  

When you add tiles to your map, you can choose to do it in any order. Roads and railroads must line up. The various features on the tiles allow you to score points in different ways. I played this game with the electricity expansion added, so this is not the standard basic game. Railroad Tiles has many expansions and offers many ways to play. One way electricity helps you score points is if you power every tile of a city, which is three connected building tiles, the city is worth more points. The electricity expansion introduces one more way you want to connect tiles. You want to connect the corners of tiles which show electric cables, because that's how you supply electricity. 

The meeples you can place on your map are cars, trains and pedestrians. The general rule is the first meeple you place gives 1 point, the second one 2 points, and so on, up to 5 points per meeple. Every game round, players are allowed to place some types of meeples to help you score points, but whether you can place them depends on whether you have taken tiles that allow you to do so. 

The three tiles above are special scoring tiles you have in hand from the beginning. Everyone has the same set. In specific rounds, you are allowed to add one of them to your map to help you score points at game end. 

This special tile on the left scores points if its road is connected to two cities at both ends. The one on the right scores if it is next to a fully powered city. 

Every round there will be one set of tiles unclaimed. It stays while the other columns are refilled, and it gets a star token, making it more attractive. Star tokens are worth 1 point each. They can also be used to place a different meeple type from that specified for the current round. 

When the game ends, you need to find the largest rectangle on your map. Every tile in this rectangle scores 1 point. This incentivises players to build their maps in a neat, rectangular way.  

The windmills are from the expansion. They generate electricity.

I am surprised that the tile placement is more challenging than I expected. I wonder whether it is because we played with an expansion. That means an additional layer to consider. Every round when you consider which tile set to claim, you need to imagine and calculate how you will place them. If you are the first player to choose, there is a fair bit of mental work to do. It is interesting to puzzle out how to fit the tiles and how to maximise scoring. You need to consider several scoring criteria concurrently. When you evaluate which set to claim, it is not just about calculating how many points the set will get you now, you must also work towards several longer term goals.

Turn order for the next round is an important consideration. If the sets remaining for you to choose from are about the same, you probably want to choose the one nearer to the left so that next round you'll go earlier. It can be painful to see that perfect tile you want being claimed by someone else. You can try to persuade them not to take what you need, but whether that works... it depends. Maybe you can promise to be nice to them next round. 

Railroad Tiles is a decent tile laying game. I enjoy it enough to be happy to play, but it's not something I seek out to play. It must be doing pretty well, since it has so many expansions. If this is the kind of game you like, you will have lots of fun content to explore. 

Pilgrim Poker - almost here!

I am expecting my next game from Cili Padi Games, Pilgrim Poker, to be released at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang, 7 - 9 Aug 2026. I am very excited about this project. This is the first time I am using a Chinese story as my theme. 

This is the box cover. Certainly a bold concept from my artist Edwin. I did have some concerns when he first showed me the concept art. I was worried that if we were to make the box look like a traditional string-bound book, the front would need to be rather plain, and there would be a lot of information which I'd normally want to put on the front that I couldn't include. Eventually we proceeded with the concept, and I'm keen to see how this is received. 

This is the first time we are putting some art on the sides. We want to showcase the artwork inside the game. 

The start player card is double sided, with a day side and a night side. I put Buddha on the start player card. I think this is most appropriate. 

The start player card is double-sided to help you keep track of how many rounds you have played. Whenever it makes a full circuit around the table, you flip it to the other side. This means everyone has been start player once now. 

Of the three action cards in the game - Raise, Side Bet and Change Card - Change Card is the one which potentially upends everything. So I put the Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yin) on it. Modern day Guan Yin enjoys Chinese TV series on her smartphone (probably a Huawei). She treats herself to a good headset. 

In Pilgrim Poker making a Side Bet is an act of aggression. Who else more fitting but Red Boy (Hong Haier). He plays with fire, so his graffiti can sprays fire. 

This is the card back for the number cards

Card back for the action cards

The prototype looks very different

Pilgrim Poker has come a long way. This was originally called Saikoyu, and I started working on this in August 2021. Saikoyu is "psycho you" made to sound like a Japanese game. My idea was inspired by Hanabi, in which players can't see their own cards but they can see everyone else's. I worked on it for a while, but I couldn't quite get it to a stage where I felt it was publishable. So I set it aside and moved on to work on other projects. It was in 2025 that I picked it up again. The most important thing that helped me resume working on this game was introducing the tried and true poker mechanism. Poker has stood the test of time, and there is good reason for that. Also it is something many people are familiar with. This makes the game easier to learn and to understand. I then added the action cards, and that completed the game. 

This will be my final teaser post for Pilgrim Poker. The next time I post about it, I should be showing you the final product. Stay tuned! 

Bean to Bar

Bean to Bar is not your typical Japanese game. When I hear Japanese game, by default I imagine a short, minimalistic and clever card game with few components. Bean to Bar is a complex and heavy Euro style game with many more stuff than just cards. It is a game about making and selling chocolate. You build and run an artisan chocolate empire. 

In the game you need to do many things to complete the process of producing and selling chocolate. You will source cocoa beans, turn them into chocolate, submit your chocolate for competitions, recruit specialists to your company and open stalls to build your brand.

The core mechanism is this board with nine action tiles randomly arranged into a 3 x 3 grid. At the start of a round, you must advance your chef along the perimeter of this grid. Where it stops determines the three possible actions you can take that round, the ones your chef is facing. To take an action you must place one of your player tokens. The more actions you take this round, the more expensive it will be, in terms of time. Time is one precious resource you have to manage in the game. Taking an action does not block other players. In fact, if you take an action someone else has already taken, you get a discount.

Making chocolate is a mini polyomino game. You can turn the cocoa beans you have collected into dark chocolate, medium dark, or milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is more valuable and requires more cocoa beans. You take polyomino tiles from a limited supply to place on your own player board. For a chocolate product to be valid for sale or entering competitions, you need to have complete rows. That is a little puzzle you need to figure out.

Making money is very difficult. That means spending money, for example to buy time or to recruit a specialist, is painful. Another resource which is difficult to manage is your player tokens. Many actions require using one, sometimes committing it permanently. When you are the largest buyer in a region, you can score points from the region regularly, but you need to commit a player token. Points are hard to earn, so this is tempting. But player tokens are highly valuable too. Can you afford to lock down one player token?

Every few rounds there will be a competition. You probably want to enter as many competitions as you can.  Even if your product or products don’t win, you might still score some points. You do have to spend an action to sign up. Also when a chocolate product is entered into a competition, you cannot modify this product until after the competition. You will not be able to improve it for the time being, and your opponents might be able to develop an even better chocolate before the competition registration closing date. In case of ties, the earlier entry wins. So signing up early can be a strong advantage.

You can recruit specialists and promote them. At Levels 1 and 2, they give you special powers. At Level 3, they have no power but they can score more points. 

Two separate bags for cocoa and fruits

You can have at most four chocolate products

Bean to Bar is a tight game. There are many things you want to do, but your resources are limited. You must plan your actions carefully to do as much as you can with the limited resources you have. For me this is just okay. I found it a little fiddly. I don't think it is necessary to streamline this game. Simplifying it may not make it better. It is what it is, and players who like this type and weight of game will understand the charm. I appreciate how strategic the game is. It is an open information game. It's just that I am less attracted to this genre now. This is certainly a challenging game and if you like a challenge, go for it! 

National Economy

National Economy is a game from Japan. It is a worker placement card game. It is pretty compact. There are many elements which at first made me think - isn't this just like Agricola? As I played, I soon discovered it is more than that, and less than that at the same time. All in all, a different beast, despite several familiar concepts. 

The game is played over 9 rounds. You start with two workers. There are some common starting cards on which you can place your workers to use their effects. Every round a new common card is added. You can construct your own buildings, which are placed in front of you. They are your private buildings and only you can place workers on them. One interesting thing about this game is you will be selling your buildings in order to be able to pay your workers' wages. You must pay wages at the end of every round, and workers' wages gradually increase throughout the game. Expect to be selling buildings frequently. Sold buildings become public buildings. They are placed at the centre of the table, and anyone can use them now. 

The card powers are mostly simple. Some let you draw building cards from the deck. Some let you construct buildings. You can recruit new workers. You can gain consumer items. These are just generic cards which can be spent on constructing buildings. Building costs are expressed in cards and not money. You pay in cards, and this can be either other building cards or consumer item cards. Some buildings help you score points at the end of the game. That is, if you manage to keep paying your workers without selling these buildings. Money and remaining buildings are also points at game end. 

Notice that box cover in the background. This area is called the budget. It is a separate pool of money from the money supply. Most of the time you pay money to and get money from the budget. The only time you get money from the supply is when you sell buildings. This is a little unusual - having two pools of money to manage. This has gameplay implications and it is important, and I would say it is worth the effort. How much money is in the budget affects what you can and cannot do. 

Consumer items are just a generic resource. They are all the same in terms of gameplay, but the art on the cards varies. This is a nice touch. Not absolutely necessary for the sake of gameplay, but I like that they spend a bit more effort to improve the play experience. 

What I find most interesting is how you have to manage the buildings you construct and sell. Which ones you choose to construct, and which ones you choose to or are forced to sell will affect your play. When you construct a building, it means you have exclusive access to its power. This can give you an advantage over others. However you have to be prepared that you might have to sell that building later, and others will gain access to its power. This game makes me feel that life is fleeting and nothing is permanent. It's a zen feeling. You need to be able to let go. 

As the game progresses, there will be more and more common buildings at the centre, and you will have more choices. However not all are good choices. As better and more expensive buildings become available, you don't want to use those weaker ones anymore. So the worker placement remains competitive and tight. 

One interesting challenge is the hand limit of five which is checked at the end of the round. This makes planning challenging. If you have multiple good buildings in hand, you might have to sacrifice some, spending them as payment for the one you decide to build. Or you may have to try to gain cards (including consumer items) early in the round, then spend these cards for construction before the round ends. 

This is a mid-weight game. It is clean and compact. The fun is in maximising your efficiency by making good use of the public buildings available as well as the buildings you manage to build for yourself. There is fun in analysing the game situation and trying to find an effective strategy. As a worker placement game, it does offer something a little different from other worker placement games. 

National Economy was first published in 2015. Two variants were released after that. The latest edition of the game published in 2025 includes all three ways to play. If you enjoy gameplay like this, this is a great deal.