Publisher: Gamewright
Release Date: June 2016
Price: $29.99
Game Designer: Phil Walker-Harding
Format: Card Game
Number of players: 2-8
Game Length: 20 minutes (+ setup time)
Age Rating: 8+
Product #: 419
ICv2 Rating: 4.5 stars out of five
This is not a sequel or an expansion pack, but instead an expanded and mostly improved version of an already very good game.
Like the original, the game mechanic involves drafting a single card out of a hand, and passing the rest on to the player next to you. When all cards have been drafted, the cards in front of you on the table are scored. You gather them up and do it again, for a total of three rounds.
This enhanced version adds new cards which can be used in the deck. The deck has to be set up for each game session, which adds a few minutes to the total playing time. The variety of cards available, along with suggestions for different versions of the deck, gives this an unusual level of replay interest for such a simple game.
The box is designed to hold the different card types very neatly, but is less well-designed to handle the board which shows which cards are in play, and which has a scoring track. The display cards for that board don’t fit as neatly as the actual playing cards. The scoring track is NOT an improvement or very helpful, as it is very easy for the pawns to slip and slide on it. In practice, the old version of just scoring on paper proved to be more accurate. The card display chart was a great idea, as it gives each player access to what amounts to an information sheet for that specific mixture of cards. That’s much better than having to flip through a rule book, and much faster in most cases.
There are cards for various parts of your sushi meal, from appetizers through desserts, and the cards chosen for a particular game can create wacky combinations and scoring swings, so players have to be on their toes when drafting cards from each passing hand. The new system of creating decks allows for decks of varying difficulty, or suited to different numbers of players, another improvement over the original.
As in the original, players try to draft cards in combinations that will maximize their scores, but the deck variations in this version allow many paths to victory, literally from appetizer to dessert, because there are many ways to score points with different card combos.
The artwork, as in the original version of the game, is very cartoony, and in keeping with the theme. Imagine a cartoon with sushi types as characters, and that’s about what the artwork is like. Things like miso soup and soy sauce make appearances in this new version, along with extra varieties of maki and other foods, but there are also other special cards. Chopsticks return from the earlier version, but now you have spoons or other odd things to challenge the players.
Don’t play this right before dinner, or you will be ravenously hungry by the end of the game.
--Nick Smith: Librarian Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.
