Times played: 6 with review copy provided by Pencil First Games
Floriferous is a gorgeous game where you collect flower cards (and other things) to score points. I was made aware of the game this fall after multiple of my game reviewing colleagues asked me what I thought of it – as they pretty much uniformly loved it. This game somehow flew under my radar (though that is not surprising given how many new games there are each year now!) – but once I read up on it, I was instantly interested.
Back in the first decade of this century (c. 2009), I published a list of my top 100 kid games… and while I’d quibble with some of my choices now, I think the extensive writing I did on the state of games for children at that time was spot on. If you’d like to read it, you can follow this link down the rabbit hole.
I got curious, though, thinking about a generation of kids (since my boys are now 20 & 16 and much more interested in Unmatched, Exceed, Star Wars: Rebellion, and Heroclix) who might be missing out on some of these classics. So, what follows is highlights from my reviews of those top five kid games… along with some notes on where you might be able to scare up a copy!
ラムラムパーティー (Lum Lum Party) Designer: Rei (レイ) Publisher: 四等星 (4tousei) Players: 3-5 Playing Time: 30-45 minutes Times Played: 5
Lum Lum Party is a game that makes no sense. It is among my favorite 2021 releases, but probably won’t share that same love from everyone. The title is based upon a protagonist in a manga series from the 70s and 80s, Urusei Yatsura, but it seems unrelated to the game in theme or mechanics. The rules, however, give direction on how to search YouTube for this song the designer made about Urusei Yatsura, linked here to inspire you as we talk about the game. Stick around for the whistle, then tempo change!
Lum Lum Party is also a game that makes perfect sense. In short, it is a Bingo-based game, with two wrinkles: you have some agency for choosing the numbers on your board, and you have some agency in choosing the next number that is “called”. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything there.
Designer: M. Aoki (A(四日市)) Publisher: Yokkaichi Indoor Union (四日市インドア同盟) Players: 2 Playing Time: 15-20 minutes Times Played: 4 on a gratis copy from the designer
Kumiko and Katsuhisa is a two-player trick-taking game where one player takes on the role of the Chairman of a publicly-traded furniture store company who has left the reins of President to his daughter, but is now questioning some of her decisions, and they engage in a proxy fight over certain shareholder blocks, trying to win them over with their proposals….that is based on a true story.
Katsuhisa said many things about the job his daughter was doing that are unconscionably callous: calling her a “bad child”, describing how difficult her birth was during a shareholding meeting, pointing to his appointment of her as CEO as his only mistake, and accusing her of a coup d’etat. His daughter.
There’s much more to the story.
Kumiko and Katsuhisa, the game, fits into the family of trick-taking games where the players choose the conditions of the hand each time. There are other games that do this – Steichmeister and On the Cards being among the most well known, but there are also others that let the players collectively draft the conditions, like Nyet. In a sense, these are an extension of games that have you bid for a trump suit; you’re only setting one condition there, and the draft is more of an auction, but I think it’s on the same spectrum, even if it couldn’t have been foreseen at the time.
The game will take place over a number of rounds which each represent the shareholder blocks (such as institutional investors or the central bank). These blocks are each worth a certain number of points, and while the game lists a number of victory conditions, in practice, you play until one player has won a majority of the votes. In keeping with the theme, Katsuhisa begins with a large block, roughly 30% of the necessary victory points, that represents his family holdings.
In exchange, Kumiko begins with more proposal cards. The proposal cards will change the conditions of the hand, like setting the trump suit, adjusting the point value of certain ranks, or specifying points that will be granted if no cards of a given suit are taken. (The shareholder card will also affect the round’s conditions in similar ways.)
Designer: Muneyuki Yokouchi (横内宗幸) Publisher: Ayatsurare Ningyoukan Players: 3-4 Playing Time: 30-45 minutes Times Played: 5 on a purchased copy
Cat in the Box is a trick-taking game that continues the “tradition” of untangling suits and ranks from their natural connection. When we think about card games – trick-taking or not – we go to rank and suits: games played with a traditional deck of cards have it (e.g. rummy, poker, blackjack). Uno has it.
Cards have one number and one suit.
As best I can tell, this changed in 2005 with Joe Huber’s small release Transportation Tricks. Players are dealt a hand of a fixed amount of cards that show only a number and a variable amount that show only a suit. The suits have a fixed hierarchy, and after using one of their number cards to set the value of the suits for the round, players will play two cards to each trick: one number and one suit.
This twist doesn’t seem to show up in another published trick-taking design until dois’ first release in 2014. Rather than playing one suit and one number to each trick, dois’ has one of the two persist. That is, if you play a 7 (rank) and a Crosswalk (suit) to the first trick, you’ll replace either the rank or the suit for the second trick, but the other will remain – you will be playing either a 7 or a Crosswalk card to the second trick.
In these first two examples, an unstated symptom is that there’s no lever controlling the distribution. A hand may see many copies of the same “card” played, and others not played at all. (This is something that also happens in dice-based trick-taking games.) Taiki Shinzawa, the designer of dois, followed that design up the next year with mantel, a game that puts us closer to the Cat in the Box setup, as it ensures each person will play the ranks 1 through 12 exactly once each in a hand. In almost the converse setup of Cat in the Box, players are each given cards 1 through 12, suitless, and face up on the table, but are “dealt” a hand of colored cubes that will represent the suits. In each trick, choose a cube from your hand and place it on a rank; that’s the only time you’ll play that rank this hand. This ensures that each of 1 through 12 is played 3 times, but the distribution of the 4 suits is still left to wander.
Cat in the Box adds additional structure to the available card distribution by fixing the play space to exactly one of each card in the distribution, such as 1 through 8 in each of four suits. It doesn’t do this perfectly, but puts the onus on you to make sure it works out. And if you mess it up – welcome to Paradox City! The hand ends, adversely for you, and closer to fine for the other players.
OK, the holidays are over, but a few deals have come to our attention and we thought we should share them with you.
The Colonists – A great game from Lookout, suitable for 1 to 4 players, you can play any or all of the 4 eras. Full review here. Today, on sale for $33.95 on Prime – https://amzn.to/3HP0LoX
