At the end of the round players will score their gardens based on the round. In the first round only the blue water cards score. The second round both the blue water and green vegetation will score and in the third and final round all of the cards will score. The Cherry blossom cards, the Sakura trees score differently. They will progressively score more points in the final round based on the number of them that has been acquired into your garden. Though not consistently searched for, Shogi is still a far more researched search term in Japan than ‘Board Games’

In this card game, players work to build the most beautiful gardens in the three rounds of the game. However, the criteria change each round, so you have to work on both short term and long term goals. Interestingly, while the game is played in three rounds, the gardens remain on the table for the whole game – you keep building them larger and larger. Because your concern is with both the numbers on the cards and the types of landscape they represent, both the mathematical and aesthetic parts of your brain are involved in every decision. In a very simple way, this mimics why people enjoy zen gardens: engagement. Fun Fact: The Sengoku period of Japan which lasted around 148 years was a period of pretty much constant civil war among the states at the time.

Final Thoughts

Takenoko (Meaning bamboo shoot in Japanese) is a game about building a bamboo garden with the help of the resident giant panda, a gift from the Emperor of China.

Each round starts by dealing ten cards to each player. Then players select two cards to keep for their gardens.Our social media channels are also a great way of getting in touch with our team. Simply send us a tweet, direct message or instant message and we'll be in touch as soon as possible. Ohanami is published by Pandasaurus Games and designed by Steffen Benndorf. Art by Christian Opperer, it is designed for 2-4 players and plays in 20 mins.

Features - Fun blogs about all sorts of things, from our monthly gaming adventures to our must-have Easter games, and more! Your once quiet, quaint village has turned chaotic now that Monsters have moved in. Read our review of Horrified to find how to stop the monsters from terrorizing the village.We have a number of different writers on our blog, both here in the office and across the world. Thanks to our guest bloggers we can share more and more content with you, which will hopefully make your shopping experience even better with Zatu. Players then receive a new hand of ten cards to start round 2, once again choosing two cards and passing the rest, but now to the right. Players continue building on the rows that they already have, scoring 3 points for each blue card and 4 points for each green card at the end of round two. Fun Fact: The Tōkaidō road was a real route in Japan during the Edo period. It connected the two biggest cities in Japan together, Kyoto and Edo (Modern day Tokyo). Commonly known as the ‘East Sea Road’ (東海道), Tōkaidō was by far the most important connecting route in the entire country. Not surprisingly, I think Ohanami is a great small box game with big gameplay. Of course it has a new home in my collection and you should consider adding it to yours too if you like thinky, card drafting games. Thematic Music for Playing Ohanami The Zatu Games blog was created so that we can bring you as much content as possible about your favourite board games. We have several different types of blog entries just to ensure that we have every covered.