LogFAQs > #933293451

71. Takenoko (2011)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Tile-laying, set collection, point-to-point movement
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 25-40 minutes
Experience: 2-3 plays over 2-3 sessions (2015) with 2 players
Previous ranks: 31/100 (2016), 48/80 (2018)

Summary - Players lay hexagonal tiles in an imperial courtyard of Japan, attempting to provide bamboo for the emperor's pleasure and to feed a particularly hungry and adorable panda. Dice can give you some extra actions, but for the most part, you'll be expanding the garden, planting bamboo by moving the gardener, and moving the panda, who will eat food. Combinations of hexes, eaten bamboo, and grown bamboo complete hidden objective cards, which provide the game's scoring.

Design - Antoine Bauza is super-interesting. You wouldn't expect the dude who came up with Ghost Stories to put out a game so... not Ghost Stories. "Punishing" is the last way you'd describe Takenoko.

Takenoko is simplistic and not particularly strategic - the dice aren't necessarily fair; objective cards vary greatly in ease and value; and decisions aren't too hard. Its decision space is limited and it is calming to play. And it is gorgeous to look at - the tiles you lay, the way the bamboo stacks on top of itself as it grows taller, the thin bars representing streaks of irrigating water that flow along the hexes' borders, the best panda I have yet to encounter in a hobby game.

I could try to say more about it, but that's really it. That's the appeal of Takenoko. It's really fun to play something beautiful (which is clearly game-y; you make meaningful if simple decisions to achieve your objectives) and soothing and cute. If you like pandas, this is for you. If not, I mean, it's a game with a big-ass panda on the cover.

Experience - I played Takenoko twice, borrowing a friend's copy. It was fun and had great table presence. And it had a panda.

Future - The only people who own Takenoko in my group I usually encounter in larger-than-four settings. I wonder if it would be a good game to play at home, or if it'd be too simplistic and gaming buddy #1 wouldn't be as into the panda. But despite its not being the most interesting game, the mere process of writing about it has gotten me interested in playing the game again.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness