Game Review: Takenoko

Recommended Ages: 8+
Number of Players: 2 to 4
Game Length: 45 min

I’m a sucker for a cute face. Eyes are the gateways to the soul, and large eyes have a certain innocence to them. When I first saw Takenoko’s panda, I was drawn in by it’s large eyes filled with innocence. Little did I know his insatiable appetite for bamboo was driving the gardener mad. How could I say no to such soulful eyes?

Looks at those big eyes! How could you say no?

Takenoko, literally bamboo sprouts in Japanese , is a tile-placement game that has players in a race for points to earn the Emperor of Japan’s approval. This is done by completing objectives found on objective cards. There are three kinds of objective cards – plot objectives for placing irrigated land in specific arrangements, panda objects for eating bamboo, and gardener objectives for growing specific arrangements of bamboo.

Each turn you choose two of: expanding your plots of land, creating irrigation canals, moving the gardener, moving the panda, or gathering an objective card. Through these turns and the use of a special weather dice which adds special bonuses to your turn, your goal is to eat, plant, and plot your way to victory.

This was the moment just before I lost to a flurry of well-played objectives

 

Takenoko took us a little bit longer than the box initially described but it was certainly easy to play. Would recommend for it’s colourful tiles, it’s cartoonish art, and thoughtful strategy.

For more information or to purchase Takenoko, please see your friendly local gaming venue.

Game Review: Star Trek Catan

Recommended Ages: 10+
Number of Players: 3 to 4
Playing Time: 75 min

Coming soon!

Investigating Ohedo

At Where2Game, I am looking out for the best and newest local gaming venues. My interest piqued when Ohedo was suggested by a reader. Ohedo is a Japanese board game cafe located in Hamilton, ON – or at least that’s how it is advertised. With prime placement on Main Street, it has multiple gamers buzzing about when it’s going to open. The main issue I’ve found is that there isn’t a lot of information to find! So, I put on my Dick Tracy gumshoes and go to work to see what I could find.

The first place I turned to was Google. With it’s community based review system, I figured someone would have information.

Ohedo screen capture from Google on Jun 14, 2018

It’s missing a lot of information. So looked for their website to no avail, and from the Google Review it seems it is unclaimed. Ohedo doesn’t have an English website up and running from what I found and since I’m monolingual I haven’t been able to search in either Mandarin or Japanese. This location is very close to Columbia International College which is a private boarding college with a large student base from China, South Korea, and Japan. It is possible that a website exists for this student body, but I haven’t found one.

Turning to Reddit, I found a couple of posts from inquisitive members of the gaming community. The theme seemed to be the same: when is Ohedo going to open? /toomuchpie on their post in April 2017 said that they were still waiting for Ohedo to open. Another user, /hotsauceygum echoed this point Feb 2018 in their post when they said that it still had not opened.  The board game room had been coming soon for a year. I needed to know if this was still being worked on or abandoned. So I hit the streets.

I headed down to the Ohedo and it was still sealed up. No sign of activity and in the middle of a renovation. Brown paper lines the large bay windows preventing anyone from seeing in. I was able to go around to the door and it does look like it’s getting set up, but I have not been back to double check my findings and see if anything has been moved.

An empty board game cafe is a sad board game cafe

To the owners of Ohedo, if you’re out there, you have a community that is still interested and we look forward to reviewing you once you open. Let us know you’re not abandoned and we’ll be happy to update. To our readers, be sure that if something moves on this, we will pick it up and report it.

Game Review: Over|Under

# of Players: 2+
Age: 12+
Time: Approximately 30 minutes

While in Terra, the purpose of the game was to approximate using a series of scales and geography. Over-Under takes a different approach by simplifying down to whether a given number provided by a card is either over or understated. It’s like a less thought intensive trivia game. This is understandable given that this is also a drinking game.

Over Under board game

I’ve struggled a little bit on whether to review this because there are so many brilliant games out there that we could review. Of the three that we reviewed at Mancala Monk, this one was my least favourite. It wasn’t because of the drinking elements (we were sipping on water, tea, and soda – #partyanimals), but the game’s premise just never really spoke to me.

 

Over Under board game layout

A round goes something like this. The active player’s turn rolls a die. On the die there are four colours, ‘+2’, and ‘-2’. If you roll a +2, you move ahead on the board 2 squares, the inverse if you roll a -2. If you roll a colour, the player reads a card to the other player(s). The box has a good example of how it goes: “Over under on the longest ear hair ever grown. The line is 3 inches.” The opposite players not make votes using tokens on whether they think the answer is over three inches or under three inches. Their level of certainty is also added to the token (1 is the lowest level of certainty, and 5 is the highest). If you are right, then you move that number of squares forward along the board. If you are wrong, you move back that number of squares.

Our game took us about half an hour with three players.

This game is great for gaining a bit of knowledge, having a few laughs, and is great for larger groups such as classrooms (less the drinking) or a BBQ in your backyard on a sunny day.

Game Review: Fortune and Glory

Players: 1-8
Age: 12+
Playing time: 60-180 minutes

Grab your news cap, and put on your best old timey news golden voice because Fortune and Glory will launch you into the pulp adventure of your dreams as you battle to find relics, fight Nazis, and unearth tombs to gather the most fortune and glory.

Fortune and Glory cover from BoardGameGeek.com

I originally saw this played on Tabletop a long while ago and I knew I had to play it. My love of character voicing meant that I could bring this game to the next level. Pair into this my love of antiquities, mythology, and Indiana Jones, and you get a fanboy of epic proportions.

The game has two modes to play: cooperative and competitive. Our review will focus on a two-player competitive game using quick start rules.

My partner and I randomly picked our characters and it was the Russian scientist against a New York journalist. From the get go, it had a story of epic proportions. Communist versus Democracy, Science versus Art, Man versus Woman, there were plenty of themes that made this an epic confrontation.

Fortune and Glory near the end of our game.

As we got started, there was a lot of rules looking up, but it felt light and fun the more we played. Even my partner who doesn’t enjoy strategy loved the narrative that this game provided. Most adventures have a bit of chance to them, so the dice rolling felt exciting to see if we would end of a cliffhanger or continue throughout our adventure.

With lots of cards, tokens, dice, and miniatures, this game is huge. The box itself had considerable heft and is bursting out the seams with fun. I am definitely putting this on my must have list.