Reply: Tokaido:: Reviews:: Re: Tokaido: A walk on the gentle side

by mrwendal

Tommaso 73 wrote:

Thanks for the interesting and useful review.

A couple of questions:
- According to your experience with the game, which kind of player and playing group would be most interested in Tokaido?
- Do you think children would enjoy playing it?
- Do you see a "solo version" feasible?

Arigatou gozaimasu

Thanks for reading my review and for your questions.

I agree with Wraith75's reply above re casual gamers. Also, I can see reasons why this would - and wouldn't - appeal to many different types of gamers. It would go down well to those who love aesthetically pleasing 'bits' and a gentle approach in their games, where player interaction is at a minimum. But I guess this could be any gamer depending on what they want from a game at a particular time.
For me, I normally prefer playing games like Le Havre, Power Grid, etc, but this would fit in at a time when I didn't fancy heavy calculations and didn't want a brain burner. That said, I think an old favourite like Alhambra would more often make the playing table for me than this, but I would still like a game every now and then.

With regards children, you don't have to play with the 'role/character' abilities to make things a little easier. It is very visual and each section of the road is pretty much the same other than order and single/double stops, so gives plenty of opportunity to learn through repetition. The age range says 8+, which feels fair.

Given that even with a 2 player version you need to use a 'dummy' 3rd player (which works ok, by the way), I don't think solo would work very well. I think the player would just engineer it to go to as many stops as possible and so the only difference each game would be in the randomness of the cards, which might not be that enjoyable.

Hope this helps.