Just before Christmas I got to try another new to me game. Kohaku is a beautiful game from 25th Century Games and one that while hard to get to the the table the first time, I’ll explain why later, is very easy to play. This is a family weight tableau building game that I do have a few little nitpicks with, but we’ll get to those later after we learn how the game plays.

Kohaku Game Play

Like I said in the introduction, Kohaku is very easy to play. You draft tiles, two of them that are adjacent. One is going to be a koi tile and one is going to be a feature tile. The koi don’t give you points themselves, unless they have a coin on them. Instead, as you place them out into a tableau in front of you, you place koi near features to help them score points. For example, a feature might give you two points for each red or yellow koi next to it or three points if they are both red and yellow.

After a number of rounds, I believe 14 in a two player game, you tally up your score. There are six, I think, different scoring features, some just being five point turtles, to more complex ones scoring for all of a color in a row and a column. At the end of the game, the person with the most points is the winner.

What Doesn’t Work?

For what this game is, there are very few things that don’t work. And what I am going to say doesn’t work is kind of a nitpicking. But the game comes with amazing acrylic tiles that have the koi and features, more on them later. But when they are shipped, there is a film on them, this is to protect them when being cut. That hurt, like fingers legitimately hurt after taking all of those off the fronts and backs in probably an hour and a half of time. So it’s trick to get to the table to start.

Then my one real complaint is the scoring track. All the scoring is done at the end, and they give you a little neoprene mat where you draft your koi and features from with a score track at top. The track doesn’t have a zero, it goes 1 through 9 and 10 through 90. If you know that, you can count it correctly. If you don’t, you’ll score it wrong going straight from 1 to 9. This would be better with a 0 on the track. But even then, it’d be much better as a score pad.

You can watch a good playthrough of this game over on GloryHoundd YouTube channel, which I have below.

What Works?

Firstly the aesthetic of the game is amazing. The tiles are beautiful. The neoprene mat, while I have issues with the scoring is very nice. And they made it as pretty as it is without taking away from the functionality of the game. You can easily see how many baby koi or dragonflies are on tiles. The scoring tiles all have their scoring printed on them. You don’t wonder what is going on as you play.

Play is also very fast. Can you spend time figuring out your perfect move, sure, but you are taking two tiles from a total of twelve. And even in that you are limited because you need to select adjacent tiles, and only orthagonally not diagonally. Plus the game is a lighter game, so it’s not one that is meant to be maxed out to the highest point total possible. I’m sure some people will, but it isn’t a game that should be.

Weight wise it reminds me of Calico, a simple game to play with a lot of scoring. The scoring in Calico restricts what you can do or what you need. It does in Kohaku as well, but because you are always drafting a feature, you open up more spots and ways to score. And through three plays, it seems like almost all the scoring tiles are about equally as good. Turtles being the worst, but being a guaranteed five points no matter what.

The game is also fast in play time. Fourteen rounds, two turns per round, took us maybe 20-25 minutes per game. For a game that gives you a good choice each turn, that is really fast. And while I don’t need to be engaged in my opponents turn, I often am. Not because they can mess me up too much, just because I can start to plan while the person before me goes.

What Do I Want To See In More Plays?

Firstly, I want to try this at a higher player count. I played Kohaku three times, but it was all at two players. And it works very well at two players, but I’m curious to see how it plays with more people. I didn’t strategize too much with blocking my opponent at two player. But I think that’d be even less of a thing with more players.

I like that Kohaku seems to let you focus more on building out your own tableau to score points versus stopping your opponent from getting stuff to score points themselves. If you try and block, you likely will tank your points too much. Instead, when you choose between two equally good things, you maybe choose the one that hurts your opponent more.

I also want to see how well this holds up over a lot of plays. I’ve played it three times in a row, and because it is so fast had a great time with it. But after 10 plays will it start to feel the same or not? I think that it could, but also I think that it might not matter as much. For example, Splendor generally seems the same to me and I got tired of it. But Splendor also takes longer. This feels as easy as Splendor but faster, and I think more interesting in the choices I make.

Kohaku Initial Impressions

This is a fun game. It is a simple game. I actually almost brought it up to family Christmas because it is a family weight game. And I could see my family liking this game because it is a pretty game to get to the table. Is this a game that I’m always going to want to play, unlikely. But I think it’ll have a spot on my shelf for a long time.

It really comes down to the scoring. While the koi and features determine some of your direction, you can try lots of different scoring ways. And to me, that experimenting with the game makes it a lot of fun. Like I said, that might end eventually with more plays. But it is a game that fits a nice niche. Games like this stick around longer because they play so well with a wide number of players.

Have you played Kohaku, what are your thoughts on it? Is it one you want to try?

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