[Board Games] Takenoko

Takenoko is a game about bamboo farming. As unlikely as that may sound as a premise for a game, it's actually quite fun. Let's start by looking at components.

These hex tiles(plots) make up the game board, and are placed by the players during the course of the game.

These objective cards are what the players are trying to complete in order to score points.

There are 3 types of objective cards:

• Panda objectives (purple back) are accomplished when the panda has eaten bamboo pieces of the number and color shown

• Plot objectives (blue back) are accomplished when the plots in play match the configuration shown

• Gardener objectives (orange back) are accomplished when the bamboo has grown to the height and configuration shown

The Gardner is represented by this piece.

And this is the Panda.

The players keep track of their actions and assets on these boards.

The setup is pretty simple. You place the pond tile in the middle of the table, and place the gardener and the panda on the pond tile. This pond tile will serve as the main source of irrigation for the bamboo farm. Give each player a player board and one of each type of objective card, and setup is done.

I won't go into specifics of all the gameplay, but in general a players turn involves rolling the weather dice to see what extra benefit it gives, then selecting 2 actions from the following list:

• Play a plot - this expands the game board

• Take an irrigation line - only plots connected to water can grow bamboo

• Move the Panda - this results in bamboo being eaten by the panda

• Move the Gardener - this results in more bamboo being grown

• Take another objective card

Play continues until one player has completed a set number of objective cards (determined by the number of players). Then points for completed objectives are tallied and the player with the most points wins. There are a couple other bits I haven't talked about for the sake of brevity, but those are the basics of the game.

One of the main things I like about the game is that there are many different strategies that can be employed. You can choose to go after different objective types, which will influence the actions you choose, but you will also need to adapt your strategy based on the actions of your opponents. This has made each of the three times I've played this game quite diverse, so the game doesn't get boring on repeated plays. I think this is a good family game, as the content is very innocuous, but I think it would be best suited for ages 12+. The box lists 8+ as the recommended age, and while 8 year olds could play this game, I don't know that they could really be very competitive. It does have a fair bit to do with strategy, and not so much luck. But for families with older kids looking for a game night addition, this would fit the bill nicely. Of course, I've only played this game with other adults, so take the recommendation with a grain of salt, but all the adults I've played this with also said they enjoyed it.