About the game
The seasons are changing fast and the forest must be protected. Deep in the mountainous forests of Japan, the souls of the trees are animated as spirits called Kodama. These souls wander outside of their hosts, tending to their groves and maintaining the balance of nature. In Daniel Solis game Kodama you become the caretaker of the tree spirits to cultivate your tree across 3 seasons to make your Kodama as happy as possible. You do this by placing branches with the right features and by playing Kodama cards. This is a 2-5 player game but if like me you like to get the most out of you games and be able to play when other aren’t around I’ve come up with a way to make this solo against an atonama player. Yes you can play online games but there something about the tangibleness of a real board game.
Solo mode
Set up
Firstly choose a trunk card for you and the atonama player which from now on I’ll refer to as Yōkai. Place these at the edge of the table. Next give your self 4 random Kodama cards and give Yōkai the 3 sprouts that matches the feature on their trunk card. Then shuffle the branch cards and the 3 decree decks and place these next to you. Grab the tokens matching your and Yōkai feature and the tree token and place these on the score board.
Gameplay
Select a spring decree then select the top 2 branch cards, if when picking these you can not play either card the discard and select 2 new cards. Pick one of these and place it onto your tree scoring points for each continuous feature. Give the 2nd card to Yōkai trunk. This is to be placed on the left most trunk going clockwise until you can place it remembering the placement rules. Branches must be connected to another branch with a matching feature, width of branch doesn’t matter, cards can’t be lower than the bottom of the trunk and the card you’re placing must not touch more than 1 card. Then score as normal. If the card can’t be placed Yōkai receives 5 points. Repeat this 3 more times with you always going first until the season is complete. You then look through your 4 Kodamas and pick 1 and score. Then select the spring sprout and score for Yōkai. Now draw a summer decree and repeat with the summer sprout and then finally play autumn. Once all 3 seasons are done the game is over, highest score wins.
Review
Artwork 3/5 – The artwork by Kwanchai Moriya is simple but is in keeping of it Japanese heritage. Each branch and Kodama cards is uniquely designed which adds to the game.
Complexity 2/5 – The game is very simple to play once you understand the card placement rules.
Replayability 5/5 – With it’s short game play and many choices of Kodamas it’s a game I’ve played a lot already.
Player interaction 4/5 – Your choices will effect Yōkai game entirely, sometimes you may need to hinder yourself to stop Yōkai
Component quality 2/5 – Along with the cards it has scoring markers which are quite basic.
Comeback ability 4/5 - You can either go for instant success on your branches or play a long game and come from behind and score with your Kodamas.
Solo game 3/5 – Now I’m not competitive but you don’t want to always be beating an autonoma player. I’m currently up 5 to 2 with the biggest win being by 15 points but usually it’s within 5 points.
Boardgamers group 5/5 – I’ve found this to be a very good as a pregame to a longer board game or when you having a shorter meet up with its short set up time.
Overall thoughts
Improvements
- I don’t understand why the box says 2-5 players it can easily play with 6. It seams that board game makers have decided you can only have 4 board gamer friends
What I enjoyed
- Short set up time
- Simplicity
- Everyone stays competitive
Final thoughts
A well rounded game and a brilliant filler game 80/100
