Zodiac Go

Zodiac Go is the first published game from Malaysian designer Choe Chee Kong. I have been involved in the development of the game in small ways, and it's a great feeling seeing it evolve and eventually get published. It's like witnessing an old friend's journey from dating to marriage to children.  

Zodiac Go is not a singular game. It is more like a game set, like a deck of standard poker cards. You can play many different games with it. The physical game does come with one rulebook, and it is for one of the games you can play. This game is Rite of Fortune. There are more games available at the game website, and Chee Kong is continuing to develop and release even more. 

In this game there are 12 Chinese Zodiac animals, plus the cat. There are five different elements, which is a traditional Chinese concept - metal, wood, water, fire and earth. There are two polarities - yin and yang. Every card has these three aspects - animal (or number), element (colour of animal) and polarity (card background). 13 x 5 x 2 = 130 cards. 

Here are other game components. Not all games use all components. 

Counters which can be used as currencies, point tokens or player markers.

The game Rite of Fortune is set up like this. The cards are separated by polarity - yin and yang. The face-up cards are the card market, from which you can take cards. If you don't see any card helpful to you, you can draw from a face-down deck. Depending on which deck you from from, you know you will definitely get a yin or a yang card. 

This is a set collection game. It plays like rummy. You play cards in melds. You can layoff cards to your opponents' melds. You try to play all your cards to win. There are two additional ways a game can end. If you manage to exceed 20 cards in your play area, you win too. If no one has achieved a winning condition by the time the point tokens run out, the game ends, and highest scorer wins. Point tokens are gained when you make melds or layoff to melds which fulfil specific conditions. 

These are the three meld types. The first type is a yin yang pair. The animal and the element must both be the same, and you play a pair of opposite polarities. For this meld type you can't add cards. The second meld type is the straights. You must have the same element and polarity, and the animals (i.e. numbers) must be in sequence. 12 wraps around back to 1. Imagine a clock. You need at least 3 cards to form a meld. The third meld type is animals of a kind. The animal and polarity must be the same, and the element must be different. You need at least 3 cards to form a meld. The max in a meld will be 5 cards, since there are only 5 elements. Cats are jokers. However they still need to follow rules on polarity and element. 

The Rite of Fortune reference cards come in two languages, English and Chinese. 

Rite of Fortune is just one of the games you can play with Zodiac Go. Some of the other games are a little more complex, some are simpler. There are even some real-time games. Party games too. All the games are family games. They are designed for the casual gamer, so they are easy to learn. 

Chinese New Year is coming so it's the right occasion for Zodiac Go! Official website: https://zodiacgo.games/