Designer: Steffen Benndorf

Artist: Christian Opperer

Publisher: NSV/Pandasaurus

Arranging garden elements for the ultimate sakura blossom viewing experience!

Steffen Benndorf has designed several games based on his popular hit, The Game. In The Game, players work cooperatively to arrange a deck of cards numbered from 1-100 in sequence. The deck is randomized at the start and by working together, all players must lay out cards in sequence in two columns – one in ascending and the other in descending order. The Game is fun especially for family play. Not being a big fan of co-op games, I have enjoyed the simple premise of The Game and really only wished that the title is more search-engine friendly.

Since the publication of The Game, Mr. Benndorf has designed different variations of the game using the core mechanism of sequencing numbered cards in ascending and descending order. Ohanami borrows heavily from this concept and instead of working collaboratively, players build their own rows for scoring. The deck in Ohanami has 120 cards in 4 suits numbered from 1-120. There are almost equal number of cards in the blue, pink and green suits (~34 cards) and half of that in the grey suit. The suits feel equally distributed throughout the entire deck with no two cards in sequence belonging to the same suit. The theme of the game is building a Japanese garden with the suits representing different elements in the garden. Blue cards are the water elements, the green are plants and the grey are stones or rocks. Finally, the pink are sakura trees and this ties into the title. Ohanami is a Japanese tradition of flower viewing, specifically the sakura blossoms which is a cherished tradition in Japan.

Since this is a competitive game, Ohanami needed to figure out a way to distribute cards to players and here, Mr. Benndorf decided to use the time-tested card drafting mechanism. There are three rounds in the game and each round, players are dealt 10 cards for which they will select two for their garden and passing it to the next player to the left. These two cards can be placed in one of three columns so long as they are in ascending or descending order. Gaps between numbers are allowed so long as cards can be placed on top or below the row to extend the sequence. So unlike Keltis/Lost Cities which allows only ascending or descending numbers in one direction, cards here can be added bidirectionally. To make things less restrictive, each column can contain cards from different suits Players are allowed to discard some of the cards if they do not want or can’t add them to the garden. In general, the rules for placement are really relaxed and most of the time, players should be able to lengthen their gardens. Players then keep on drafting 2 cards from each hand passed to them from the player on the right until all cards are depleted.

There are three rounds to the game and the drafting part of the game is similar for each round. The unique part of the game is in scoring. After the first round, only cards in the blue suit are counted with each card worth 3 points. In the second round of scoring, all blue and green cards are counted and each green card is worth 4 points. Finally in the last round, all suits are counted. The grey suit is now worth 7 points while the pink suit is set collection and points are given based on a table of values. Of course the more cards you collect, the more points you will earn. The winner is the one with the most points (naturally!).

Impressions

Ohanami is basically The Game: Competitive Mode. Unlike The Game where everyone is working together to solve a puzzle, Ohanami is all about setting up the personal garden for scoring. In The Game, solving the puzzle is challenging as the timing must be just right to win. You also need a dose of luck. In Ohanami, that challenge is not present. I found that placement is really relaxed and having three gardens gives ample opportunity to play all the 30 drafted cards. Moreover, cards can be placed bidirectionally and columns are not suit-specific. All of this removes the tension of card placement since it is not hard to find a suitable spot that fits. Sure, sometimes the gap is quite substantial, but with three columns, there is a plenty of margin for error. Moreover, for scoring, it does not matter which row the card is placed. I would love for the rules to be tightened to make placement a bit more restrictive and challenging.

As it stands, Ohanami is a low-conflict and low stakes game. It is not a taxing game by any stretch of the imagination and all one needs to decide is which suit to collect and how big of a gap they want between cards. Blue suit scores the fewest points, but scores all three rounds. Green and grey score fewer times but worth more points. Pink only scores at the end, but can give you a whopping 120 points if half your garden cards are in the pink suit. Not surprisingly, pink is pretty powerful if one can collect 15 cards – something which I found not hard to accomplish. I don’t know if one can or want to play defensively in such an easy-going card game.

I believe Ohanami will have its fans. I don’t think my family was against playing, but neither were they asking for it. My kid played but was not invested in the outcome of the game. I do think the game is too relaxed and is a take-and-make game of the highest order. As it stands, I really won’t be asking to play this game much and it will likely be exiting my collection shortly. I will stick to playing The Game instead.

Final thoughts

Not for me. The game will be perfect for some families, but we found it uninspiring. I much rather play The Game and that says a lot since I am not a huge fan of co-ops. Ohanami is simply not challenging enough and does not provide any memorable moments. Players just draft and place cards in their tableau for scoring and for the most part, everyone should be able to play all 30 cards. There is no tension, no intrigue and scoring is ho-hum. I think there are better options out there.