Inori

• Designers: Mathieu Aubert and Theo Riviere
• Publisher: Space Cowboys
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30-40 minutes
• Review copy provided by publisher

In the Inori Valley, villages are built under a giant sacred tree in which spirits live. All year long, village chiefs make offerings to these spirits and assemble altars in the hope of becoming the Great Tree Guardian for the next year.

For each of the four seasons comprising a complete game of Inori, players place their offering markers on the spirit cards or on altars for the Great Tree. This allows them to activate abilities, earn points, or obtain favor tokens. At the end of a season, a spirit card with all spaces occupied gains bonus points and is replaced, creating new opportunities.

At the end of the game, offerings for the Great Tree give points according to their color for players having the most favors of each color.  The Guardian of the Great Tree for the next year is the player with the most points.

To set up the game, place the board on the table with three start cards down the center of the board and with the altar tokens to the left (near the Great Tree spaces). Based on the colors seen on the bottom corner of the start cards, two tokens of each of those colors is placed on the spaces near the bottom of the Tree.  Shuffle the Journey and New Start decks and place each near the board.  Each player chooses their color and places one of their Offering markers on the designated spaces at the right side of the board.  Players will start the game with 3 Offering markers in hand.

The game is played over four rounds, each called a season.  In each Season, players will take turns placing an Offering Marker on an empty space (on a card or on The Great Tree).

If you place on a card, some spaces have costs under them, you must be able to pay to place on that spot.  Once you place your marker, then take the action shown on that space: gain Favor tokens, draw a Rune tile, score points, etc.   If you place on a space on the Great Tree, first place a colored Altar tile next to the space if there is not one there already.  Then take the action on the Tree space: gain Favor tokens, score points, draw rune tiles, play neutral offering markers, etc.  Note there are three spaces at the bottom of the Tree which do not require an Altar tile – each offers two Favor tokens, and each of these spaces can only be used one in the entire game.

On your turn, you can also play as many Rune tiles as you like.  There are three varieties: move an Offering marker, place your marker on a spot already occupied, or a tile that is worth 2 Favor tokens.

Play continues around the table until all players have played all their Offering markers.  Now, each of the cards in play is evaluated.  If the card is complete – that is, all its offering spots are occupied – then each player that has an Offering marker on the card scores 1 point for each Favor token they have matching the one shown in the top right corner of the card.  Once the card is scored, replace this card with the one shown in the upper right.  All players take their Offering markers back.    If the card is not complete, no one scores points, and the card is replaced with the top card of the deck shown in the bottom right.  

One exception is the New Start cards (which you don’t know about yet).  If a New Start card is complete, follow the usual rules.  If a New Start card is incomplete, players with a presence will score points for the marker shown in the bottom right.

Once all the cards are scored, players now take any Offering Markers that are on the next space.  The player with the lowest current score then takes the top two cards from the New Start Deck and choose one to play in the newly vacated space on the board.  This player is also the start player for the next round.  As the card spaces are limited, getting to go first in a round is a really nice way to balance things out.

After this has been done four times, there is final scoring based on the Great Tree.  Look at the top five levels of the Great Tree, and the points listed are given to the player with the most and second most Favor tokens in the color matching the token.  If no Altar was placed, no scoring happens for that line.  The player with the most points wins.  There is no tiebreaker.

My thoughts on the game

So I thought that I liked Inori from my first view of it at the Asmodee press event back at Gen Con.  I got a full demo of it, though one that happened in five minutes or less.  The room was loud, and it felt like it was about 110 degrees, so at the end, I wasn’t quite sure if I had grokked it.  Nevertheless, it was high on my list of games to try and I requested to get a copy before I left.   That requested copy finally came in, and the game has exceeded my expectations.

At first, Inori looks to be a worker placement game leading to resource management.  Most of the actions focus on gaining these different colored Favor tokens, and scoring occurs at the end of each round by having tokens in the correct colors.  At the end of the game, you are also rewarded for majority in the different colors.

But, there’s much more going on in the game.  If you plan to score at the end of the round, you have to be on a card that is completely full.  Do you try to entice someone to take the last space on a card by choosing a less desirable option (thus encouraging someone else to take the final spot with the better action)?  Do you place a worker over on the Great Tree – maybe not for the action, but instead to install a color altar on the tree for endgame scoring – or maybe to make it so that a particular color will not be involved in endgame scoring?

Throughout the game, you will constantly be dealing with Favor token management.  Of course, in general, you’re trying to collect as many as you can – but the importance of the colors can be changed by both the cards available each round (for scoring at the end of the round) as well as altar locations (for endgame scoring).   There will definitely even be times when you take a two step process, first collecting a particular color to make it your most prevalent, so that you can then go to a space where you have to spend your most prevalent color in order to take an action.  Of course, while doing this, you risk someone else taking your desired action as they were willing to pay the cost without having to take that extra step…

There is an interested ebb/flow of the cards on the board.  In general, if a card scores for a particular color, a card of that same color comes on as a replacement.  Does this mean that the rich get richer?  Not necessarily, but it really make you want to jump in on a color even if you’re not currently in it.  Of course, that could derail your plans for domination in other colors/on other cards – and you never have more than 5 total actions in a round, so you have to think carefully about where you want to use your workers.

The Rune cards (which our group has started to call the Egg cards) offer some interesting options as well.  Though they are all only one-time use, and there are only three varieties, they can have powerful effects when used at the right time.   There is a bit of directed attack in the one which lets you move workers to/from a card – because you might be removing a worker from a scoring position…  Though, there are times you might move someone from a card onto the one where you are on in order to fill it up; and in that case, you’re actually giving that person a chance to score!  The Runes which allow you to play on an already occupied spot can also be invaluable given the circumstances.

At the start of the game, you only have 3 workers, and you’ll pick up a few more as the game moves on – making the later rounds last a little bit longer.  That being said, the whole game still comes in around 30-40 minutes, so it’s never outstaying its welcome.  There are so many things to consider in this game that I remain engaged throughout the entire game.   I’m definitely looking forward to playing this one more.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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