Game Review – Tokaido

COVID has played spoiled sport to all your travel plans? How about I tell you a way in which you can travel through a beautiful town in Japan, explore various panoramas along your way as well as indulge in some shopping?

Sounds exciting, right?

Come onboard this journey with me through this picturesque board game called Tokaido.

The game consists of : 1 Game Board, 5 traveler piece, 5 Travel point markers, 5 player colour tokens, 50 Coins, 10 Traveler tile, 12 Hot spring card, 60 Panorama cards, 25 meal cards, 24 souvenir cards, 14 Encounter cards, 7 Achievement cards. 

Set up the board as shown in the picture below. There are a lot of elements in the game, once you know them, each play shall not take more than 20 minutes.

A Guide To The Photo Above

• A – score markers
• B – Traveller Card
• D – Coins To Begin With
• E – Traveller
• F – Temple Coins
• 1 – Game Board
• 2 – Bonus Points
• 3 – Meal Cards
• 4 – Souvenir Cards
• 5 – Encounter Cards
• 6 – Hot Spring Cards
• 7 – Panaroma
• 8 – Coins

To begin with, each player must be given a choice of 2 traveler tiles, drawn randomly. The player keeps one of them. Each traveler tile has a special power and it denotes the number of coins the player shall begin with. 

After choosing the card the player shall pick their colour- place it at the Inn (the staring place) as depicted in the picture above (E) and shall put their corresponding point marker at the top (A).

The game is now set-up and ready for play. The player during his course of journey till the last inn shall come across various stops such as :

 The Village – Where one can buy souvenirs and make a set of 4 souvenirs in order to get more points;

 The Temple – Where the player can donate upto 3 coins;

Encounter & Hot Springs – If you stop at the encounter or hot spring – Draw the top most card;

Panorama – There are three panoramas – Paddy, Mountain, Sea – Complete their sets to get the bonus card;

Farm – If you are out of coins stop at the farm and take 3 coins from the bank;

Inn – There are a total of 4 Inns in the game, one each at the start and end and remaining two it he middle of the game. All players must gather at the Inn for a meal and then move ahead. The first player at the Inn picks up meal cards (3) equivalent to the number of players playing the game. For example- if there are 3 players, 3 meal cards will be picked up. The first player shall buy one meal from those cards and then pass the cards to the 2^nd player who will then pass it to the last player. The player who last entered the Inn shall now proceed ahead. A player shall continue their turn till the time they are the farthest from the Inn in comparison to the remaining players. 

The game though looks difficult to understand, is super fun to play with once all the elements are understood. 

If you wish to buy this game or know more about it, please feel free to get in touch! You can click on the WhatsApp button below to comment or leave a comment.

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