Each round starts by dealing ten cards to each player. Then players select two cards to keep for their gardens. Fun Fact: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu were the three Daimyo (feudal lords)that eventually unified Japan by 1590. For the player interaction section of the Ohanami review, we award a another solid 7 out of 10. Denying your opponent those big scoring cards while also not worrying about passing the gold your opponent can’t use always need to be in the decision making process for each choice you make, but that is it. For the most part you are in your own world. It is a drafting game, so it is certainly there. The most control you have is in the flow of cards to your opponent, but as far as an option in the field, there is nothing too extraordinary. The Mummy: The players must break the Mummy’s curse by aligning scarabs on a tablet and then, once the tablet is activated, entombing (defeating) the Mummy for eternity. Welcome to Zatu Games! Your favourite destination for everything to do with board games. From card games to dice games to Strategy and miniatures - Zatu Games has it covered.

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. You’re Fighting For Your Life – A Player TurnOnce everyone has two cards, beginning with the last player to pass their hand players will place their two cards into one of three gardens in front of them. The individual cards can start a column garden at any point or go on top or bottom of an existing one. So the numbers on the cards must be higher than the highest or lower than the lowest already in the column. If you cannot place a card, you can discard it. Play this 5 times in a round until all players hands are empty. The aim of the game is to keep your giant panda happy by building the three types of bamboo and keep them irrigated. Play Tokaido 2. Takenoko – Care For a Giant Panda Ever wanted to care for a giant panda? Now you can!

The Invisible Man: He is very sneaky — he’s invisible after all — and he’s been committing crimes in the village and getting away with them all because no one believes he exists. It’s up to players to first gather evidence against him and present it to the police (the task). Once this is accomplished, the players must trap the Invisible Man to defeat him. Players repeat this drafting, passing, and playing process until they have played ten cards. The first round ends, and players now receive 3 points for each blue card in their rows.

Because the rules are brief, you are playing within moments. Even with your first choices, you are setting the constraints of your three little worlds. In a flash, a round is over and scored. Repeat twice and the game is done. For round three, players have ten more cards and pass cards to the left once again. At the end of this round, players once again score for their blue and green cards, while also receiving 7 points for each gray card in their rows. Additionally, each player scores for their pink cherry blossom cards, with these cards having a pyramidal scoring structure: one card = 1 point, two cards = 3, three cards = 6, etc. Whoever has the highest total score wins!

Small box card games make up about 25% of my board game collection — and that jumps to just over 40% if you count strictly card-based games in bigger boxes with a few components like cardboard tokens or a board (games like 7 Wonders and Lost Cities, for instance). I knew I liked little card games quite a lot, but even these numbers surprised me. We have a number of different writers on our blog, both here in the office and across the world. Thanks to our guest bloggers we can share more and more content with you, which will hopefully make your shopping experience even better with Zatu. At the start of a round, each player receives a hand of ten cards. Each player chooses two cards, then passes the remaining cards to the left. All players reveal their cards at the same time, then decide whether to use 0, 1, or 2 of them in personal rows of cards. When you start a row, you can use any card; to add a card to an existing row, that card must be higher than the row's highest card or lower than the lowest one. A player can have at most three rows of cards. Discard any cards you don't use. Perhaps this is because the Japanese board game scene isnt that large, at least by European standards, or maybe it’s because the cult following of Japan themed products has grown exponentially over the last decade.Not surprisingly, I think Ohanami is a great small box game with big gameplay. Of course it has a new home in my collection and you should consider adding it to yours too if you like thinky, card drafting games. Thematic Music for Playing Ohanami