Would you like to be able to build your own koi pond and fill it with rocks, statues, frogs, butterflies, and fish? If you answered yes to this question, then we have the game for you. This week we are looking at Kōhaku by 25th Century Games.
Kōhaku (2020)
BGG Description
Kohaku is a peaceful koi-pond-building, tile-laying game. Each turn, players will draft both a Koi and Feature tile from the central pond board to place into their personal koi pond.
Score points by surrounding flowers with koi containing matching colors, placing frogs next to koi tiles that have dragonflies, and ensuring that baby koi have a safe place to hide by placing them near rocks.
Butterflies score based on line of sight, so make sure to line them up with similar-colored koi. Turtles and statues bring a sense of balance to your pond and score points more easily, but sometimes aren’t as valuable as some of the other features.
You must carefully plan the placement of your tiles, because once they are in your pond, they can’t be moved! With no restrictions on the shape of your pond, you can build a unique layout to maximize your koi pond’s appeal.
After there are no koi tiles available to refill the central pond board, the game ends. Players will total the points scored by each feature in their pond. The player with the most points wins.
—description from the publisher
Weight 1.7/5
A Little More Info
The setup of the game only takes a few minutes to do. All of the feature tiles are shuffled and stacked for use in the game. The koi tiles are mixed based on the number of players (additional tiles are added for three and four player games) and then either five or seven tiles are removed randomly from the game.
Tile selection and placement of tiles in the game is easy to understand. From the pond mat, you selected adjacent koi and feature tiles and place them into your own pond that you are building. Placement rule is simple, koi tiles cannot be next to koi tiles and the same goes for the feature tiles.
As stated above, once there is no more tile to be placed in the central pond the game is over and you score each feature tile in your personal pond.
Sounds easy you say? Well, yes, it is just that easy. Not a complicated game at all to play.
What we like about the game
We love that this game is simple. It is a great game for young players and old pros. All you do in the game is select tiles and place tiles. There are no other actions to worry about, no cards or icons to figure out and learn.
We also love that you can play by yourself or with up four total players. Regardless of player count you can complete two or three games in the span of one hour.
All the images on the tiles are beautiful and easy to see and understand. We had no issues at all figuring out what each tile means.
What we don’t like about the game
There is absolutely nothing about this game that we don’t like. Even the rulebook is done in such a way that it is easy to read and understand.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This game is a must have for your collection if you have young gamers in the family. Even if you don’t have young gamers in your home, this game would be a great addition if you like serene and calming games.
After playing a few times, it gives me the desire to go visit a Japanese Garden and be “one with the fish.”
The retail version of the game is great but if you are blessed with finding a deluxe version of the game, the tiles are thicker layered acrylic ones that gives an added “POP” to the game. Those in our game circle that have game are now wanting to find a deluxe copy for themselves. If you have one or two extras in your collection that you are will to part with, let us know. They would be going to homes of people who love our hobby.
No comments:
Post a Comment