Everyone agreed that the Takenoko bits and parts are beautiful. This game always seems to make a great first impression because who doesn’t love the tiny little panda figure? 🙂 It doesn’t take too long to explain the rules (you expand the garden, grow bamboo, and feed the panda). It’s also fairly easy to coach new folks through their first few turns. One the second turn the weather die comes into play and introduces the idea of the improvements. When I am teaching I will usually pick a panda objective to finish first so I can show people how that process works. All of these help get the game started, especially with a limited amount of time available for our lunch break.
It was fun. We made a beautiful garden. The gardener was happy, the panda was satisfied, and while the game wasn’t particularly close everyone enjoyed it and said they wanted to play it again. That’s the best indication of a successful game session as far as I am concerned.
I have the first edition of the game, but I’ve added some extra monsters as I can. The game started out slow with everyone rolling for VP (victory points) but as soon as I got into Tokyo and started wailing on people they got the idea. I lasted two rounds (only three players, so it wasn’t too hard) before I had to leave. Then I bought a card that awarded me extra VP at the cost of health and decided it was worth the risk.
Bad choice. 😉 Baby Gigasaur was able to claw me and finish me off with a Discard card that delivered damage to every monster. She went on to win.
Overall it was a successful / fun lunch break. I am trying to introduce new games when I can, so I think next time we’ll try out Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Nom nom nom nom.