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Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out!
First: We summon colorful spirits to achieve harmony in Yōkai
Next: We use ocean themed origami art to create the hand our dreams in Sea Salt & Paper
And lastly: We grab pen, paper, dice and maybe elbow pads in Roll’n Bump
Yōkai
Designed by: Julien Griffon
Published by: Bankiiiz Editions / Gamewright (2019)
Players: 2 – 4
Ages: 8 & up
Playing time: 20 min
Yōkai is a co-operative card game where players must make harmony out of chaos – by moving a jumbled bunch of Yokai spirit cards into groups of the same colors. Players will be peeking at the face down cards, and moving them into place. Table talk is limited, you can’t outright say to the other players what you are seeing, but you can drop hints.
16 yokai cards are laid out in a 4×4 grid with four each of four colors, red, green, blue, purple. Players take their turn by peeking at any two cards. Next they move a card.
Hint cards – they are information. At the end of a player’s turn , they must reveal a hint card, or play a hint card. Hint cards have either a single color, two colors, or three colors.
At any point, a player can declare the puzzle solved, and then the cards are flipped over to see if the color groupings have been achieved. But you have to do so before the last hint card is drawn.
Did we win? Or did we fail the Yōkai spirits?
Sea Salt & Paper
Designed by: Bruno Cathala, Théo Rivière
Published by: Bombyx (2022)
Players: 2 – 4
Ages: 8 & up
Playing time: 30 – 45 min
Sea Salt & Paper is a card game where players seek duo combinations, to unlock special actions, and score points towards victory.
Start by taking a card. Choose from one of the two discard piles, or top deck two cards then keep one and discard the other. Face up please, and yes, two discard piles. If a discard pile has no cards, you must discard to that pile.
Play continues until a player with 7 points or more in their hand decides to call LAST CHANCE or STOP
LAST CHANCE means you believe you secured the most points that round. Players each get one last play, then count points. Win the bet + color bonus, other players only score their color bonus. If you lose, you only get to score the color bonus.
STOP means play stops, count your cards immediately.
The game ends when you reach 30/35/40 points (4/3/2 players). All non winners – much like origami – must fold it up.
Roll’n Bump
Designed by: Louis-Nicolas Dozois
Published by: BOOM Editions (2011)
Players: 2 – 5
Ages: 8 & up
Playing time: 30 min
Roll’n Bump is a dice-rolling game of set collection that’s fun for young and old.
Players take turns rolling their dice to try to match hands shown on the nine available cards on the table. Some cards require one correctly rolled die, others, some require multiple dice – all depends on the point value of the card. The harder the combinations, the more valuable the card.
Watch out – if someone beats your roll, they’ll bump your dice off and have the chance to claim the card for themselves! Once you roll and place your dice, when your turn comes back around to you, any dice of yours that have not been bumped, go ahead and claim your card.
At the end of the game players score points printed on each card based on the difficulty of the dice sequence as well as extra points for collecting cards in each of the four suit colors. And now we must all do what we were taught when we were 5, and we suddenly catch fire, we have to stop, drop, roll and bump.