Namiji

• Designer: Antoine Bauza
• Publisher: Funforge
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30-45 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Flat River Group

In Namiji, you are fishers from the Japan of yesteryear, navigating south of the Japanese archipelago, a few kilometers from the famous Tokaido road. You will need to have a fruitful day at sea to win the game. To do this, you will have the opportunity to contemplate magnificent marine species, to fish with a line or a net to fill your racks with colorful fish, and haul in your crustacean traps. You can benefit from stops to improve your fishing equipment, and you will also have to contend with the gods of the sea by setting offerings afloat, or by fulfilling their wishes that they express during your contemplation with the Sacred Rocks, for which they will reward you.

Namiji features gameplay similar to Tokaido. The action spaces are laid out on the game board in a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action, so players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces. What players are doing on the track differs from what they do in Tokaido.

To set up, the board goes on the table and the different decks of cards/tiles are shuffled and placed on their spots. All the fish tokens are placed facedown and a single one is turned face up.  Early bird tokens are placed next to the board.  The Crustacean tokens are placed in the bag.  Each player takes a player board and puts their four Offering tokens on the spaces on the left of the board.  The player’s boat pieces are placed on the starting line in random order and the direction of travel for the game is decided upon.

In the game, turn order is decided by progress on the track.  The game consists of a single lap around the board, with all the boats always moving in the same direction.  Whichever boat is furthest back on the track takes the next turn.  On your turn, you are allowed to move to any free location and then you take the action at the space where you land.  If you stop at a station which has multiple landing spaces, you must always take the one closest to the main path.  

The one exception to the above pattern  is that when you reach a Dock, you must choose a docking space, and then you simply wait there until all other players have also docked.  When all players are at the Dock, that action is resolved.

There are 7 different types of stops – each with its own rules and effects:

Fishing: Take any fish token from the School, then you must flip a face down fish to its face up side.  Then, you can choose to keep your token by placing it in your rack on your ship board or you let it go, placing it face up on the School area on the board.  If you keep it, your first fish token must go in the upper left space; all other pieces must be placed orthogonally adjacent to a previously placed fish.  You will score points if you fill a row or column such that all the tokens are either the same type of fish or the same color.  If your rack is full, you may not stop at a Fishing station any longer.

Net Casting: Take the top Net token from the deck, it has 2 fish icons on it. You may choose to place it (by the same rules as above) or discard it by placing it facedown at the bottom of the stack. If your rack is full, you may not stop at a Net station any longer.

Sacred Rock: Draw 2 Sacred Rock cards, look at them and keep one, placing the other under the deck.  Each of these have a different endgame bonus.

Crustaceans: Draw a crustacean token from the bag (it starts with 30 shrimp and 20 crab). You can draw, one at a time, up to 5 tokens.  If you draw a second crab token, you turn is over and you return all the tokens to the bag.  If you stop before this, or get to the 5th token, you place all collected tokens on your board.  Each token is worth 1 pt at the end of the game

Whirlpool: Place your topmost offering token onto the Whirlpool area in the center of the board. You will lose points at the end of the game for the number of offering tokens you still have left.

Panorama: Actually three different types, (Whale, Octopus, Dolphin), but they all work the same.  For whichever panorama you stop at, take the lowest numbered tile you don’t already have.  Score points equal to the number of the tile you took.

Dock: When you arrive at a dock, you can choose any available spot to park in and then you wait until all players are stopped at that dock; this could mean that you skip a few turns while you wait.  Once everyone is there, the player who is closest to the main route draws N+1 Dock cards, looks at them, keeps one and then passes the rest to the next player in line. Continue until all players have taken a Dock card, the unchosen one is placed under the deck . Dock cards can be meals, which simply score VPs, or they can be Upgrades which give special abilities that can be used at a particular type of station for the rest of the game.  Once all players have taken their dock card, the game continues with the player furthest from the sea route moving first.

The rules are a little different at Start/Finish Port.  As players arrive here, they take the highest numbered Early Bird token available and place it on their boat.  No Dock cards will be distributed.  Once everyone is back to the Start/Finish space, players reveal their Sacred Rock cards and score them based on the criteria shown on each.  Additionally, players deduct points based on the number of Offering Tokens they have leftover.  The player with the most points wins.  There is no tiebreaker.

There is also an expansion, Aquamarine, that adds in three modules which can be added in any fashion.

• A whirlpool board replacement that gives special actions on each space when you put your offering token down
• Extra Crustacean tokens that have special abilities on them
• Wild colored fish tokens 

My thoughts on the game

Namiji is definitely a relaxing easy-going game, just like its predecessor Tokaido.  It is easy to see how Tokaido has inspired this game; many things are the same – though there are enough differences that I would not say it is a straight re-skin.

There seems to be a bit more in the decision making process in Namiji – though only just the barest bit more.  In Tokaido, it really felt like the optimal decision was to take the most turns possible as every move scored you something, so the more moves you took, generally the most points you’d score.  Sure, there was a bit of jockeying around the stops, you needed to hedge your bets on parking location to balance the chance you’d get a high scoring card against moving first to get more turns on the road.

In Namiji, you still have the same decision at the ports – there’s no magic answer for what is best slip to stop in at the ports.  However, the decisions  between the ports are at least a bit more complex.  When you fish/net, you have to decide whether or not to keep your token, and then you have to decide where to place them on your board.  If you make the wrong placement, it’s possible you score nothing.  It’s also possible that you throw your catch back because lady luck didn’t shine upon you.  Likewise, there is at least a bit of decision making at the Crustacean stop.  Everyone is guaranteed to get one point if they want as you can always stop after the first draw.  However, the mini push-your-luck game makes this space at least a bit more interesting.  

Sure, those decisions don’t really seem huge, and in reality, they’re not huge – but it’s at least something to think about.  As each stop on the path does not come with a guarantee of points, it now makes it more likely to at least consider moving to a space other than the next available.

The artwork by Naiade is absolutely gorgeous, and I’ve always liked his style; the art is so clean and calming to see.  The rest of the components are likewise solid, and I do like the way that the base game includes an insert which appears to hold the expansion pieces.   I have already placed the bits to the first expansion, Aquamarine, into my base box – and I still have plenty of room to go!

The expansion has three extra modules, and they all work fine – each adding a bit of complexity to the game, but none really make the game that much more complicated.  My favorite of the three is the new Whirlpool board as I like the way that the extra actions give even more reason to stop at the Whirlpool spaces; causing some competition for those spots. Timing can also be important here as you have to take the first available spot, so you want to hit it at the right moment to get the action you want the most.

On the whole, Namiji – like Tokaido –  is a shoo-in for being in my collection as a great gateway game.  It’s easy to teach, beautiful to look at, plays quickly, and really embodies a lot of qualities that I want to show someone in their first foray into our hobby.  It’s admittedly so light that I probably wouldn’t play it except as a gateway game, but it’s good to have great games for all occasions.  

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y
• I like it. 
• Neutral.
• Not for me.