“Life is a journey, not a destination.” Nothing beats a stroll through the garden, and a beautiful Japanese garden is one many people would tell you is the best of them all. And standing tall in these gardens are torii gates that mark your transition from the mundane of the world into the sacred. Today we will journey through their arch into another realm to explore…
The One Hundred Torii is from Pencil First Games and is designed by Scott Caputo with illustrations from Vincent Dutrait. The game is produced by Eduardo Baraf and has a Japanese cultural consultant from Lisa Wilcut. The game plays 1-4 players in 45-60 mins.
Objective
The goal is to earn the most journey points (victory points) by expanding the community garden and walking through as many Torii gates as you can on the shortages paths possible between similar items. Along the way you will have different characters who are able to help you on the journey.
Gameplay
Each player begins with 2 tiles and 2 coin tokens and the rest of the game area is set up to start the game. All the tiles are shuffled together to form a face-down draw pile and all of the individual Landmark tokens are placed into piles. Individual Character tokens are stacked by points and the Large tiles are placed near them. The starting tile with all 6 Landmark tokens is placed in the middle of the play area.
The game is played over a series of turns. Each turn a player will take 4 actions in this order:
1-Get Help
2-Expand the Garden
3-Claim Achievements
4-Draw Tiles
In Get Help players have the option to buy assistance from one of 5 characters at the start of their turn once per round. Each character has a token cost that is either 1 or 3 of any combination of Landmark tokens or coins. Each character will do something to modify tiles in hand or how tiles are placed on the board. This is optional and not something you have to do each round.
Next is Expand the Garden which has you play one tile from your hand to expand the center garden. You then score that placement of the tile by finding the shortest path from a Landmark on that tile to another of the same type on the existing map.
Tokens are gained based on a few different things. First you will receive 1 Token for the matching Landmarks that are connected. Next you will score additional tokens based on the Torii that your path goes under. For each Red Torii you pass through you will score one more matching Token. For each Blue Torii you will traverse under you score one Token of your choice that doesn’t match the connected Tokens.
Now in the third step players will Claim Rewards in Landmark, Character Bonus and Achievement Tokens. Any Landmark Tokens must be traded in for a 5 point Large Token once you get 5, and then flipped to a 10 point card once achieved. You can continue to collect them even when you hit 10 but you won’t score more points than 10.
Character bonus Tokens are gained when you use the Get Help action in the same turn. You gain one for the first time, flip it for the second time for more points. You may only have one of these Tokens per character but may try to get them all. You may also claim an Achievement Piece if met. These are based on scoring Tokens, using a character a 3rd time or making an completing Enclosures.
Finally in the last step you may Draw Tiles after claiming all rewards. Players draw back up to tiles and then the game continues to the next player.
The game continues until the last tile is drawn and then each player gets one more turn. In end-game scoring all Journey points are scored from collected Tokens and the winner is the one with the most points!
Impressions
The One Hundred Torii dives into a Japanese themed world with all the grace and care of a group who you can see truly respect and love the culture. The instruction manual alone speaks to that-it is full of reference to the culture and history of the characters and items, poetry and personal testimony from the team. You can see the love that was poured into this project on the design and the construction before you even play it. The art is phenomenal and everything you would expect this to look like for authenticity and beauty. Vincent Dutrait is fast becoming one of my favorite board game artists and this game is a jewel that really shows off his talent and skill set.
Jumping into the gameplay, you are introduced to a tile placement game that really gets your brain thinking in a different way then any tile game I have played before. It is familiar while still different in style than anything I have played before. Scott Caputo once again comes through with a wickedly awesome tile-based game that stands out on the shelf. You will see the depth and intricacy of this game as the rounds continue towards the end and really appreciate the design that went into this one.
Another fun aspect of the gameplay are the characters you can gain help from. These add some variety to the basic aspects of the game and really make it a fun challenge to determine how and when to use them to get the most out of your turn. The set collections of the Tokens and the characters help is great, and as you build towards the bigger point value scoring it can really be a fun race among players around the table.
Eduardo and the team at Pencil First knocked this one out of the park-I can’t describe how good this game is in words-it needs to be played. It is beautiful in design and gameplay combined and has everything a tile laying gamer will enjoy. It is open to easy understanding for all players and scales on difficulty based on the level of gamer well. I cannot recommend this one enough-make sure you get out and grab a copy of The One Hundred Torii and take a walk through these elegant gardens soon!
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