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. 

Gambler x Gamble!!

 

Gambler x Gamble!! (two exclamation marks) is a game from Japan released in 2024. It is a reimplementation of a 2016 game called Gambler x Gamble! (one exclamation mark), which won the Group SNE Contest in 2015. We all know what it will be named when it gets a third edition, don't we?

When I read the rules, the first thing that comes to mind is this is Machi Koro without dice! Instead of rolling dice to see which cards generate income, players collectively play cards and you add up the card values. Now I'm a big fan of Machi Koro. I think it's lovely. It doesn't mean I'll like a near clone of the game. It just means I like this kind of gameplay. I played this with Jon, who dislikes Machi Koro because he was traumatised by a gruelling 2-hour session with too many red cards. Our game was a little skewed because it was a little rushed. He wanted the pain to end quickly. So I feel I have not fully experienced Gambler x Gamble!! yet. I need to play again. 

Here's how the game works. You start with some money. You get to pick two different cards. Cards are gamblers you recruit. When the sum of the round matches the number on your gambler or gamblers, they make money for you. You can spend that money to recruit more gamblers, hopefully to help you make more money even more quickly. The end goal is money. The game ends when someone has $20 or more, and the richest wins. 

Every round, every player will contribute one card to the sum of the round. In the beginning, you only have two number cards, 0 and 1. That means you will be contributing either 0 or 1. The start player of the round plays his number card face-up. The rest play theirs face-down. You can discuss and tell others what you have played. Being honest is, well, not mandated by the rules. After everyone has committed a card, the start player has one chance to increase or decrease the sum by 1. Then all cards are revealed, and you calculate the sum. Whoever's gamblers match that sum makes money, as specified on the gambler cards. Pretty straight-forward so far. 

There is more to the game, of course. Every gambler card has a normal side and a lucky side. Every round, you have the opportunity to spend money to recruit an additional gambler. Alternatively, you can flip one of your gamblers to the lucky side. The main difference of the lucky side is it earns more money. Each time the lucky side scores a hit, it is reset to the normal side. 

There are two special gamblers, 4 and 8. If they get flipped to the lucky side, and they then score, the owner wins the game immediately. Some gamblers give you additional number cards when you recruit them. You may get the -1, 2 or 3 number cards. This lets you manipulate the sum in different ways. 

I have a feeling the game is more than meets the eye. The game we played was pretty short. The things you do are simple. However I don't think the game is simplistic at all. I realise that you may not always want to buy lots of cards (recruit lots of gamblers). In our game, Jon and Ji Li assembled a large team. By having a bigger team, you can have a wider range of numbers, and chances are one of your gamblers will score. However spending so much money on recruitment is also slowing you down in reaching $20. The ROI might not be quite right. I didn't have a big team, and I tried to upgrade my gamblers more to earn more. 

I think managing vested interests is important. You have to watch what your opponents want because it helps you better guess what numbers they will play. During the game you can discuss, and even collaborate. If someone buys one of those instant win gamblers, you suddenly find everyone else nervously cooperating to avoid the sums of 4 or 8. Negotiation and deception can play a big part in the game. 

Some parts are indeed like Machi Koro, but the overall play experience is different. I need to play this again to explore the strategy space more. Also the player interaction. I think the group mentality will determine which strategy works better. For example whether the players are pushing the sum to be higher. If most people go higher and you are the only one with low cards, you will be in trouble. Your choice of what to buy depends on the group mentality. 

I realise I have played quite many games by Kaya Miyano - Trio (originally Nana in Japan), Panda Panda (originally Cat Poker), Dog Poker, Trick & Snipers, Shady Lady and Zombie Tower 3D. I enjoy many of them. 

Boomerang: Australia

Boomerang: Australia works very much like 7 Wonders and Sushi Go. You start with a hand of cards. You pick one and pass the rest left. You keep doing this, and eventually all the cards will be claimed, and you score points based on your set of cards. This is a simple core mechanism. How the game differs from others is how the scoring works. 

Every card has several elements. They all affect scoring in different ways. Every card in the game is a location in Australia scattered across seven states. Each location you visit gives you one point, and if you are first to cover a state, you score a bonus. You get a little scoring sheet to mark off locations you have visited. 

Some cards have souvenirs, and they just give you points. At the end of a round, if your total souvenir points is 7 or less, you get to double them. If it is more than 7, no doubling. So you have a little Blackjack going on here, trying to get as close to 7 as possible but not over. Some cards have animals. You score them only when you are able to get a pair within the same round. If you are playing a 4 player game, and you see two of the same animals in your starting hand, you can hope to claim one and wait for the other to cycle back to you. However there is no guarantee that someone else might want the same card for some other reason, for example it is a location they need for completing a state. 

Some cards have activities. At the end of every round, you have the option to choose to score one or more of the activities. After you score an activity, you can't score it any more for the rest of the game. The more icons you have, the higher you score for that activity. Ideally for each of the four rounds, you focus on collecting one of the four activities. In practice, you rarely get an ideal situation. 

The first card that you claim in a round is placed face-down before you, so no one else knows what it is. The rest are face-up, so your neighbour can check what you might need and try not to pass you those cards. This is a game with adjustable depth. You can play with a simple approach, caring only about your own collection. You can also play in a more competitive way, watching what your opponents do and trying to deny them, or trying to collect what they don't want any more. Your chances of winning are higher if you are more competitive, but you will still have fun playing in a simple way. The reason for your first card being face-down is the boomerang scoring. You compare its value with the value of the last card passed to you from your neighbour. You score the difference. That's why you don't let your neighbour know that card specifically. 

Boomerang: Australia is a pleasant set collection game. It plays smoothly. You feel like you are on holiday in Australia. Nothing ground-breaking, but it is an enjoyable experience. 

Dewan

Dewan in Malay means "hall", and the boardgame Dewan has nothing to do with any hall. It's just the name of the game world. But I'm stuck with thinking "what the hall" whenever I say the name of the game. Dewan is a clean civ game. I am tempted to call it 4X, but it doesn't have all four X's, just eXpand and a bit of eXploit. No eXplore or eXterminate. You start with a little settlement, and you spread out to settle other lands and fulfil your destiny of greatness. The game ends when a player builds his 9th settlement. 

This is what a 3-player game looks like. There map tiles are randomly set up so there is variability from game to game. One key concept in the game is the region. A region is a set of connected hexes of the same terrain type. For example there are four grey regions in the map above. To complete objectives (here they are called stories), you need to have settlements in multiple regions. Normally you'd only place one settlement in a region, because if you have two, they still only count for one region that you have access to. 

On your turn, you have only two options. You either claim two cards, or you build a new settlement. You claim cards from a display of six (see above, lower row). You must claim adjacent cards. This is interesting. I can't think of any other game that has this rule. There probably are some. I wonder whether this will work with Ticket to Ride. My guess is it will be too frustrating. Here, it works well. 

To build a settlement, you pay cards. You must be able to trace a path from one of your settlements to a new empty site. For every hex your settler moves through, including both starting hex and destination hex, you must pay a matching card. Water cards are an interesting mechanism here. When you pay with a water card, you may move as far as the river (or lake) takes you. That's pretty thematic. 

The row of tiles at the top are your objectives (called stories). They give you points if you fulfil them. They require that you settle a specific number of regions of a certain terrain type, or that you control certain resources on the map, or that you have settlements on riverbanks, or some combination of these. You draft a story tile at the start of the game, and throughout the game you may claim up to three more. When you complete a story tile, you score points and also earn one free card. 

This is your player board. The settlements are placed along the bottom, and there is a reason for this. When you place your 2nd, 4th or 6th settlement, you unlock a story tile slot and you get to claim a story tile. When you place your 3rd, 5th or 7th settlement, you may tuck a card under your player board. These cards count as you having access to an additional region and possibly resource too. 

Those that look like star icons are berries. They are worth 2 points each. Other icons on the edges of hexes are resources you can gain access to if you build next to them. 

When playing the game, in a way you are just doing your own thing, planning how you want to expand and fulfil your story tiles, but at the same time, this is a land grab. Although you don't get to fight your opponents or steal their settlements, you are competing for a very precious resource - land. If you think they are aiming to settle a specific spot that you need, you'd better hurry. There is certainly some tension among players. It's not direct aggression, but you do have to watch what they are doing. 

Three of the story tiles I had needed red terrain. Getting story tiles which are similar saves much work. I use the cards I tuck under my board to help fulfil my story tiles. One nice thing about the component design is the story tiles are placed recessed slots. When you complete a story, you can slide the tile up to reveal a worship icon. It gives you a free card. 

The game I played against Han and Jon was mostly peaceful. I am not sure whether this is normal. We didn't seem to get into one another's ways too much. Possibly I got into their ways just that I was oblivious. 

Dewan is a pleasant family strategy game, at least based on my personal experience. I have a suspicion that it can be more cutthroat. I like that it is streamlined cleverly. You only have two options, drawing cards or placing a settlement. There are several scoring conditions you need to juggle at the same time. You want settlements that form groups, because groups score bonuses. You want to have more fires than others, because you get a bonus for that too. You need to manage all these while trying to make sure you can score all four of your stories. You probably should block your opponents sometimes, if it doesn't distract you too much from your own plan. 

Trishaw Frenzy

Trishaw Frenzy is a Malaysian design. The designer is Ewe Boon How, and the publisher is LUMA. This is a game about trishaws in Penang. It is a simple game, and I'd even consider it a children's game. 

One easy way to describe the game is modernised Snakes & Ladders. This is a roll-and-move game. The board is made up of nine tiles randomly placed and oriented. The squares on the tiles are not numbered so you don't use such numbers to determine your route. Instead, you use a randomly drawn route card (see below). You roll a die to move your pawn. The first to reach the end wins. 

There are a few location types on the board. Depending on where you land, you perform certain actions. One type of location lets you rotate a tile. You draw a card to see which tiles you are allowed to rotate. Rotating a tile can have huge implications. You might set your opponent back, or you might put yourself ahead. Some locations are portals, and they teleport you to another portal. This is the snakes and ladders part of the game. Sometimes you draw a new route card. This can dramatically change the situation. A leading player might find himself far from the new finish line. A trailing player might find himself only a few steps away from winning. 

It's a simple game, and it is roll-and-move. For seasoned gamers, "snakes-and-ladders" usually means "stay away". In Trishaw Frenzy when you get to rotate a tile, you get to make a meaningful decision. So this is not a passive and 100% luck-based game. There will be dramatic twists of fate. You never know what surprise awaits at the next corner. This is a casual and light game that's easy to learn and relaxing to play. And this is such a pretty game! 

Katana Spirits

Katana Spirits is a light strategy game from Singaporean designer Geoffrey Chia. This game uses several characters also found in other titles from Good Spirit Games. Many of Geoffrey's games have a Japanese theme. Katana Spirits is a game about training yourself as a fighter and then going out kick some gangster butt. This is a game which uses polyomino tiles. 

On your turn you must choose to train or to fight. Training means claiming a polyomino tile from the centre of the table. Fighting means spending these polyominoes to defeat gangsters and score points. Six cards are laid out at the centre of the table in a 2x3 grid. On each card there is one type of polyomino you can take. When you train, you move a shared pawn one step and claim a polyomino where it lands. How you move the pawn affects where the next player can move it to, and thus the kind of polyomino they can take. If you are able to perfectly fill your player board, you will score 1 point. You will want to try to do this, while at the same time you want to prevent your opponents from doing the same.

The gangsters are divided into three tiers - minions, lieutenants, and bosses. There are many different types of minions and only three of them are available at any one time. Whenever one gets defeated, a new one will be drawn from the deck. There are exactly three types of lieutenants and two types of bosses. These are fixed, which means you can plan precisely when and how to defeat them, and which one you want to aim for. You cannot do such planning for the minions. If there is a specific minion you want to defeat, you'd better do it before somebody else makes their move. For every lieutenant you want to fight, you must have defeated two minions. For every boss you want to fight, you must have defeated two lieutenants. The game ends when one boss is defeated or when the minion deck is exhausted.

Defeating a gangster is just spending polyominoes. The total value of the polyominoes must match or exceed the strength of the gangster you want to defeat. Ideally you want it to be a perfect match. If you overspend, it means you have overstretched yourself and you will take one injury. When the game ends, if you still have injury, you will lose points. During the game you may skip turns to heal yourself.

Health tracker

All the gangsters you defeat are worth points. They have certain properties, and some of them give you extra points based on these properties. So there is an element of set collection when you defeat gangsters. Some gangsters give you ongoing abilities, for example you can move the shared pawn an additional step, or when you heal you heal an extra step.

Katana Spirits is a light strategy game which will also work as a family game. This will work with a casual crowd as it is not complex. You don't directly fight your opponents, but there is plenty of player interaction. You affect which polyominoes your opponents can take, and you will also compete for certain minions. There are several small things you can do to annoy your opponents, especially the player after you.