Petrusek23

Everything about this game is chock full of character. The hexes and wooden pieces (irrigation channels, action tokens) are the only standard fare, but everywhere else the game is bursting with color. The panda and gardener are drawn in a cute, bright style and the included figurines match it well. The best part is the set of bamboo pieces, which come in green, pink, and yellow. As you play, you stack them to show the bamboo growing on the fields, which turns the board into a 3d growing field.

The gameplay is fairly basic. Each turn you choose 2 tasks from the following: add plot, grow bamboo, irrigate a plot, eat bamboo, or pick a new task card. You will choose what to do based on the task cards you hold in your hand. Some may require you to have the panda eat 1 of each color of bamboo, you may have to organize plots in a specific order, or grow bamboo a certain height. After the first round, you roll a die that gives you help in accomplishing your tasks such as giving you an extra turn or letting you do the same task twice.

Sure it’s fun to move the panda and gardner characters around and stack bamboo, but there is not much strategy involved and most of the time those around the table are helping you without knowing it. You never really feel in control. It is still a fun game, it just would have been nice to maybe have a bit more depth to dig into. It does it’s job as a relaxing, enjoyable game, and gets a lot of play time on my table due to its accessibility.

Let me start out by saying Cash N’ Guns is one of my favorite party games. It easily accomodates 8 people, which not a lot of games do, and is definitely better with more people. Also, you get to wave foam guns around. How could it not be fun.

In Cash N’ Guns the premise is that everyone is a thief and have now come back to the hideout to claim what is theirs from the big heist. But everyone knows you can’t trust a thief, so now you must bluff, intimidate, and flat out stab everyone in the back to get the most loot.

The gameplay is very simple, and can be taught in minutes. At the beginning of the round 8 loot cards are placed in the center of the table. Then, everyone chooses whether they want to play a click or a bang. A bang card essentially knocks someone out of the round leaving more loot for yourself, but you only have 3 bang cards to play throughout the games 8 rounds so use them sparingly. If you want to bluff you play a click card. After choosing between the two, everyone places their cards face down in front of them. Then, on the count of 3, you draw your gun and point at who you would like to shoot…or click. After asessing how many guns are pointed at your face, you may choose to bow out for the round. This means you can’t be shot but you also aren’t able to grab any of the precious loot. After it is determined who’s been shot and who’s laying low for the round, those still in divide the loot among themselves. This ends the round and continues for 8 rounds total. The person with the most valuable loot at the end wins the game.

This game is great fun and very light. The foam guns adds extra excitment and a lot of tension is built up when you actually have one pointed at your face. One twist in the game is if you are the godfather in any given round, you may tell any one person to point their gun at someone else.

All around, an excellent bluffing game. Silly, quick, loud and fun.

Appearance:
Before you even open the box, Tokaido is a beautiful game. From the artwork on the front of the box to the board and components. The art style is simple and elegant and everything flows together very well. One gripe would be that the character cards do not fit well when placing them in the box, but this is minor.

Gameplay:
The premise of the game is that we are on vacation and taking in all we can on our walk. Along the way there are hot springs to dip in, souvenirs to collect, paint a picture, and many other activities. To achieve these tasks you move your character from space to space collecting the necessary cards The gameplay is fairly basic and linear and may be a turn off those into heavy strategy, but is still great fun. The most strategy will involve deciding where you want to go based on others on the board. Whoever is in last moves, so essentially they keep going until they are able to leapfrog another player. Sometimes you may move to a space out of necessity and other times you may want to block someone from being able to get a vital piece they need to score the winning points. Each character also has their own special ability that also changes how you will play the game and dictate what you do. It’s a great, light game that is very easy to learn.

Replay:
The main con would be that it doesn’t have much variety. Once you’ve played a handful of times, you’ve pretty much seen everything. That doesn’t mean you won’t still want to play it but for some that could be a problem. The different abilities each character has does a little to help mix things up but ultimately you’ll play the same no matter what character you are.

Closing:
Tokaido is a beautiful game that doesn’t involve too much strategy or complex rules but it still manages to pack a lot of fun into what essentially is a more mature version of Candy Land.