Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e is the 2025 Japanese edition of an old game from Michael Schacht, called Crazy Chicken (2003). This is a simple, mostly abstract card game, so it is easy to retheme. I would never have imagined a game about crazy chicken getting transformed into a game about traditional Japanese woodblock prints. 

In this Japanese edition of the game, you are collecting pieces of art by famous artists, and you will run exhibitions. Every suit represents one artist. Cards have point values. The point value distribution and the number of cards are different for the various artists. 

On your turn you will draw two cards from the draw deck or discard pile or both. And then you will either discard a card or run an exhibition. Running exhibitions is how you score points. You must have at least two cards of the same artist. You play them as a set in front of you. You don't score points immediately though. You only do so at the end of the round, if these cards still remain in front of you. Another player may run an exhibition for the same artist, if they have more cards of this artist than you do. If this happens, your exhibition will be cancelled, and all its cards will be discarded. Ouch!

There are seven artists in the game. A round ends when the deck runs out, or when there are exhibitions for six artists. Everyone still gets one more turn, but you can't run an exhibition for the last artist. You can only try to overtake one of the six ongoing exhibitions. 

It's a pretty simple game. You need to consider how soon to run an exhibition. An exhibition with too few cards might get overtaken, but if you wait too long, someone else might run an exhibition with the same number of cards as you have, putting you in a tough position of not being able to play yours. You might never draw the card you need to overtake before the round ends. 

Another twist is how you score points. When you do score an exhibition at the end of a round, you only claim the lowest card in the set as points. Playing a big set is not always the best thing to do, because you might be forced to include some of the low cards. Yet if you don't play a big enough set, it might get overtaken. 

When I played this with my family, we started off playing in a very conservative way. We kept hoarding cards and the game moved slowly. We wanted to secure more cards before we started playing them. Then my wife Michelle got impatient and started playing cards even when she didn't have big sets. We suddenly realised the importance of speed. If you don't play quickly enough, you might not have enough time. Sometimes you can get away with playing just 3, or even 2 cards. 

Ukiyo-e is a clever little card game with some strategy and risk-taking. I am glad to have come across this edition. It's a travel souvenir, and also a decent game.