Review - Ohanami

 

Players: 2 - 4
Playing Time: 20 Minutes
Age: 8+

According to a quick Google search, Ohanami (Hanami) (花見, "flower viewing") is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers.

In the game Ohanami, player try to grow the best garden! 

Cherry blossom season is about the blanket zen gardens with their resplendent wonder. Water, vegetation, stones, and sakura trees must be placed in perfect harmony in order to become a Master Gardener. 

Designed by the Spiel des Jahres nominated designer of The Game, Ohanami is a relaxing and competitive drafting game where players grow their gardens season after season.

The Goal:

Score the most points by building the best garden.

The Setup:

Shuffle the deck of cards numbered 1 to 120.  Deal 10 cards to each player.  Remaining cards will be used in future rounds.

The Play:

Each player looks at the 10 cards in their hand and chooses 2 cards.  Players pass the remaining cards to the next player face down.   Players must then play both cards either in their garden or by discarding.  

Players can have up to 3 columns of cards that represent their garden. To play on a garden, the card must have a higher value than the highest card in a column or be lower than the lowest number in a column.  If you cannot or choose not to play either of the cards, you may discard them face down.

After all players have played their cards, repeat choosing, passing and playing until card cards have been played (each player will have played/discarded 10 cards).  The round ends and you calculate your score for the round.

Round 1:  Only blue cards (3 points each) are scored.  

Round 2:  Only blue cards (3 points each) and green cards (4 points each) are scored.  

Round 3: All cards are scored...blue (3 points each), green (4 points each), gray (7 points each) and pink (sliding number of points based on how many pink cards you have in your garden.

You can read the complete rules here.

Review:

Fans of The Game will love Ohanami.  There are a lot of the same gameplay elements between the games, specifically making columns of cards in ascending/descending order.    We played it with both 2 and 4 players and it worked well with both, but we preferred 4 players because all 120 cards would be used.  With 2 players, only 60 of the cards are seen.

Overall, we give Ohanami an 8 out of 10.  It is a nice, fast game.  Would be a great filler game on game night  You can pick up a copy of Ohanami in our eBay Store or in our new web store at www.howlingfun.games. 
 
You can follow us on Twitter @HowlingFunGames and on Facebook.  

Games To Play When Camping

It's amazing how fast the summer has been going.  I just realized it has been several weeks since my last post...so here is a multi-game entry for your reading pleasure.

My family likes to go camping.  Every trip, we end up playing some games, and we have found that some games work better than others.  Here is a list of our favorites to play in the great outdoors.

Guillotine:

This irreverent and humorous card game takes place during the French Revolution. Players represent rival guillotine operators vying for the best collection of noble heads over 3 rounds.  Each round, 12 nobles are worth varying points, depending on their notoriety. During your turn, play action cards to change the order of the line so you can collect the best nobles.

This is a nice quick game and comes in a small box that makes it easy to throw in with the camping supplies.



Travel Blokus:

This is the 2-player version of the award-winning classic game Blokus.  Each player has a set of Tetris shaped plastic pieces that you must place on the game board.  Each piece placed must touch another one of your pieces, but only at a corner...you cannot place them in any other way.  Play continues until neither player can place any of their pieces.  Count the squares on your unplayed pieces and player with lowest score wins.

This is an addicting game...the loser almost always calls for a rematch.



Five Crowns:

Five Crowns is a card game for the whole family. It has original game play, but uses skills that you have obtained from playing your old favorites like hearts, spades and rummy. Because Five Crowns has five Royal Families - the Stars, the Clubs, the Hearts, the Spades and the Diamonds - yes, five suits in the old usage, it allows a more equal chance of making a book or a run, effectively giving each player more possibilities to readjust their hand so as to go out. Good players are able to take advantage of this and win more than an average number of games.
The play starts with three cards and 3s are wild; next hand has four cards and 4s are wild....working up to the last hand when Kings are wild. Each of the royal families is portrayed in original art and has its own colors. The Renaissance designs result in cards that are beautiful to hold in your hand and give a "collector" feel to the game. Five Crowns is a fast paced, ingenious new game in eleven rounds. 

This is a game we have played for years...I especially like it because it is one of the few games we have that I can regularly win against my wife...and that is a big deal. 





Quiddler:

Quiddler, is a beautiful word game with naturally smooth game play that plays fast. These are essentials for a successful game that few word games have. Using special cards, Quiddler draws on one's ability to combine letters into words. Players must combine their entire hand into words trying to use the highest point value letters. Quiddler challenges you to do this first with three cards (round one), then with four, on up to ten cards in the last round. A bonus is given for both the longest word, and the most words made by a player in each round. The average game takes 20-40 minutes. 

The great thing about Quiddler is players of all skills and ages can play.  The bonus points given for either longest work or most words levels the playing field for the Scrabble-Gods and the younger players.  Love this game!!



Here is a pack with Quiddler, Five Crowns, SET, and Xactika all togtehr for a greta low price:


Review:
All of these games are compact enough to pack in the camping supplies.  The whole family can enjoy them...especially since they are all very easy to learn.

You can buy these games in our eBay store (www.howlingfungames.com) or Our Amazon Store or by contacting us directly.