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

Too Many Exits

Too Many Exits is a game from Korea. It is based on the horror movie trope of a bunch of teenagers being hunted down by a mad killer. Like the story about friends running away from a bear, you don't need to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun your friends. This is a single loser game. When one player gets killed, everyone else survives and wins. 

Characters you get to play

The game is set up with a corridor and five locked doors. The corridor is an infinite one. You are all in the corridor and the killer is coming after you. You keep running away, but the killer also keeps coming after you, until he catches at least one of you. The five doors represent doors you might try to escape from. Every door needs a different key. When you find a key, you can try to unlock a door. You get to escape only if the key matches. Otherwise in your haste you drop the key (i.e. you discard the card). Escaping is not permanent. You only get temporarily respite for the current round. Once the killer catches someone, that person takes injury, and you start a new round. You go back to the starting line. The game ends only when a player takes the third injury. 

You have one hand card. On your turn you draw a card then play a card. Super simple. Cards have all sorts of abilities, e.g. slowing down an opponent, or picking a card from the discard pile. Some cards are Keeper cards. Keeper refers to the killer. When you draw a Keeper card you must play it and bad things happen. Once everyone takes a turn, it is the killer's turn to move. 

The premise is fun, but I find the game draggy and the novelty wears off quickly. This is mostly a casual party game. It'll work well with non gamers but I think gamers will not find this interesting. 

Normal side of a character

Panic side means you miss a turn

War of Beauty （美人大战）

War of Beauty is a game from Taiwan, and it is a party game about palace drama, i.e. how the concubines of the emperor fight for power and influence. One of the designers is Kevin Tsai (蔡康永), a popular TV show host. When I saw the components of the game, I was intrigued and very keen to give it a go. If you like this kind of Chinese TV drama about politicking at the palace, you will get a real kick out of this. The historical background is the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty.  

You start the game as entry level concubines at the imperial palace, called Da Ying. To win the game, you have to climb the "corporate ladder" to become queen. 

Everyone gets a screen like this. This is the front. 

This is the back. This is also a player aid. 

When folded, the player screen looks like a book.

The game has many components, but the core mechanism is very simple. There are two main types of cards, visit cards and character cards. To get a promotion, you need to collect three of the same visit card type. Visit cards in your hand don't count. They need to be played. When you play a visit card, you play it face down and you offer it to another player. Now a visit card can be good or bad. The player you offer it to decides whether to accept it. If she does, she takes the card and places it face up before her. If she politely declines, then you take the card and place it face up before you. This is how visit cards are collected. When you offer a good card, you hope the other player will decline. When you offer a bad card, you hope they will accept, otherwise you must take it. 

Once you have three good cards of the same type, you discard them and gain a promotion. However if you get three bad cards, you will be banished to the cold palace (冷宫). This means the emperor dislikes you and neglects you for a while. You need to get out of the cold palace first before you can continue to be competitive. 

So the core mechanism is super simple. It's just about offering cards to others, and hoping they will decline the good cards, and accept the bad ones. I consider this a party game. It's all about gaming the players and not so much the system. 

Character cards are special power cards. Some help you, some sabotage others. One other funny way to get promoted is to collect cards that make a very specific sentence. Every card has a single Chinese character at the top left. If you make an exact five character sentence “我要做自己” (I want to be myself), you get promoted too. 

I shall call these entanglement cards. You draw two at the start of the game. 

Entanglement cards represent past history with other players in the game. There is someone who has helped you before and you want to repay her. There is also someone who has wronged you, and you want revenge. If you manage to help (or hurt) that person, you will get a promotion. Because of these entanglement cards, you can tell your friend that you want to help her and you are giving her a precious good card, and that she must accept it. But then of course you might not have such an entanglement card, or your entanglement card might actually require you to sabotage her instead. So you are actually offering her a bad card - say some poisoned lychee. When I played this game I kept telling the others, here, have some abortion soup. 

Character cards are long, like bookmarks

This finger ornament is an optional deluxe component

This is the kind of game where you enjoy the setting and the components. The rules are very simple. This is something you can easily play with casual gamers. Those who like this kind of palace drama will get into the spirit immediately. Mink coat from America, my lady? 

Roti Canai

Roti Canai is from Faculty of Fun, the makers of Nasi Lemak. Nasi Lemak has been highly successful in Malaysia. It is simple and accessible. It has reached many people. I often hear people tell me they've played this fun game, and they sound like they want to say Uno or Monopoly, but the game they want to tell me about is Nasi Lemak. 

Roti Canai, like Nasi Lemak, is a light card game designed for casual players. It is the kind of game you can teach in less that two minutes. Everyone starts with a hand of cards, and your goal is to get rid of all your cards. 

Every round, the lead player rolls two dice. The dice indicate which type of roti your customer is ordering. In the photo above, that would be roti sardine and roti bomb. Everyone must play two or three cards face down to fulfil the customer's order. 

If you don't have the right cards, you can choose to draw cards before you play them. You can draw as many as you want. You don't necessarily stop when you have enough of the required cards. Since the cards are played face down, you can lie about your cards, putting down roti which don't match the customer's order. This helps you get rid of your cards, but there is risk of getting caught. 

Once everyone has played cards, beginning from the lead player, everyone has the option of challenging one card belonging to another player. If anyone is caught lying, all his cards go back to his hand, and he must draw two more cards. However if the challenging player is wrong, he must draw two cards as a penalty. This is a game of bluffing. Sometimes you play a mix of right and wrong cards hoping to get away with it, and using up your cards as quickly as you can. Sometimes you play the right cards and try to trick your opponent into challenging you. 

Most cards in the game are different types of roti, but there are also rat cards and broom cards. Rat cards are traps. If anyone challenges your card and it is a rat card, he will be the one being penalised and he draws as many cards as there are rats on the card. However if he happens to have a broom ready, he can give the rat card to someone else, who will take the penalty instead. 

This is a very simple game. In both cases of Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai, I know I am not the intended audience. I will pick these games if I am playing with a group of non gamers or casual gamers. However in Roti Canai there is one element which gamers will find interesting. It is the bluffing and psychological play. This part is about gaming your opponents and not the game system. How well do you read your opponents? How well can you bluff and get away with playing the wrong cards? 

Shady Lady

Shady Lady is yet another game by Kaya Miyano I have played this year. This is a very Japanese style game - minimalistic but clever. It has a juicy element of trying to read your opponents and sometimes cunningly misleading them. 

You have a hand of three cards. There are only two types of sets in this game, three cards of the same value, or three cards in sequence. Cards are numbered 1 to 4, then 6 to 9. There are no 5's. On your turn, you have three options. You can draw a card then discard a card. One thing interesting is everyone has his own discard pile, and you can draw from the draw deck or from anyone’s discard pile, even your own. That means you have many options, especially when there are more players. The next thing you can do is to "Try". That means showing a set that you have made, and betting yours is the strongest. If it indeed is, you score a point. However if someone else shows a stronger set, then he scores the point instead. You need to go around the table once. It is possible that one other player shows a stronger set, and then that in turn gets beaten by yet another player. After all is done, everyone who has shown his set must discard the whole set then draw three new random cards. Only one person will score. 

The third option is to "Jack". This simply means making a bet that someone has a valid set. You point at that person, and he must show his hand. If he does indeed have a set, then you score a point. He discards his hand and draws three new cards from the draw deck. If you are wrong, he also discards his cards and redraws, but he scores the point. Because of this "Jack" mechanism, if you are very unlucky in getting sets, you can pretend to have made them and trick someone else into catching you, only to end up giving you a point. Or you can spend your effort catching others. You'll score points as long as you read them correctly, even if your hand is horrible. 

The cards are glow-in-the-dark. I don't know why. Marketing gimmick?

To win the game you need to get to three points. The rules are very simple so this is easy to teach. The game creates many opportunities for fun player interaction. Making sets is simple and everyone understands it immediately. But the game is not only about making sets. It is very much about observing and reading your opponents. Being able to make a strong set doesn't guarantee you will score. If someone else catches you before you declare "Try", he gets the point and you discard your set and start all over. You want to watch which face-up cards others are taking. If you think they have a set, catch them. It might be an easy point for you. But of course there is risk too. Do you keep taking face-up cards to give the impression you have found a good card for your set? When you take two 9's one after the other, everyone will be wondering whether you already have three 9's, the strongest set in the game. The only way they can stop you from scoring is to catch you by declaring "Jack". 

The art is by Sai Beppu, possibly the most popular boardgame artist in Japan. This is a bold design that's very different. I enjoy how she surprises us and offers new experiences. 

Shady Lady is easy for casual players to pick up and have fun with. It is also something gamers can enjoy because of the psychological play. I suspect this works better when you have a bigger group. 

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

LOOP

LOOP is designed by Takashi Saito, who is from Nagasaki, Japan. I bought this game when I was traveling in Nagasaki. Because of this the game will have a special place in my collection.

This is a climbing card game, like Tichu and Big 2. You play different combinations of cards and your goal is to play all your cards. The most important twist in this game is you don’t play independent rounds. Every second round that you play, you use the exact same hands from the previous round. However every hand will be played by a different player. So if you have friends who like to complain about bad hands, tell them to play this game. If you think I won just because I had a lucky hand, let’s see what you can do with this exact same hand.

Cards come in three suits, and they are numbered 1 to 15. There are only a few combos you can play. You can play single cards, pairs, triplets, and straight flushes of two or more cards. Just like in Big 2, you must follow the combo type played by the lead player. A round doesn’t end when one player goes out. You need to determine the ranking of all players, so you need to play until all but one go out. This way you have the positions of all players. Everyone scores points based on his position. Now this is for the first of two rounds. In the second round scoring works differently. Cards are not reshuffled. You keep all the hands that have been dealt in the first round. Beginning with the last placed player, you pick a different seat to sit in. So you will play with somebody else’s hand in the second round. This means in the second round you know what kind of hands everybody has, and you can plan accordingly. This is an interesting twist to the genre. The scoring in this second round is different too. It is not just based on your ranking. It is based on whether you have improved the ranking of the hand you have, compared to the previous round. If you can make the lowest ranked card take the top spot, you will earn many points. If you are playing the top ranked hand and you are just maintaining the top spot, you don't gain much. If you do worse, you will lose points! 

Another interesting twist is the number 8. In some ways, it is a trump card. If anyone plays a combo that includes an 8, or if he plays a single 8, he wins the run and nobody else can play any more. He becomes the lead player for the next run. 8 is in the middle. If someone has played a 9, you can’t play your 8 to win the run. The 8 is strong, but not always.

The 8 can be used in another way. At the start of a round you must remove two cards from your hand. Usually you remove weak cards. However if you remove an 8, during the round, you may perform a special action by revealing that 8. You flip the strength tile to the other side. From that point onwards, 1 is the strongest, while 15 is the weakest. If you have a hand of low cards, and you have an 8, you can choose to use the 8 this way. Now there is a risk that someone else might also have an 8. He can use his 8 to flip the strength tile back to the original side. 

The game comes with fancy score trackers

LOOP introduces several twists to the climbing game genre, and they work well together. Most people are familiar with climbing games, so this is something you can more easily convince non gamer friends to try. I would say the play experience is still mostly that of a climbing game. If this is not your thing, the game probably won't change your mind. I find it novel that you get to play while knowing almost perfectly everyone's hands in the game (I say almost because there are two cards discarded). I have seen one round when the lead player was able to play in such a way that he went out without anyone else being able to play a single card! Information is power! I have also experienced myself that due to knowing the hands in the game I played my new hand in a different way, allowing me to do much better than the player who had it in the first round. 

The artwork is a little weird. I don't really understand what it is trying to say. Maybe it's trying to say deja vu. What if you get to live your life all over again, while knowing what has happened the first time you lived it. What would you do differently? Even the inside of the box cover has some art, which I also do not understand. But I like it. Maybe I'm just pretending to be sophisticated. 

There is an international edition of LOOP now, from iello, and the rules are a little different. This is good news for gamers outside of Japan. I'm happy I got myself this weird art version. 

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.