Both cozy and cunning, this new Splendor-like board game is deviously fun

I was surprised to learn that Yotei is a debut board game. Huy Pham’s first-ever design is so polished, it feels like the work of a veteran. It achieves so much with so little. This is a fantastic mix of bluffing, take-that, resource management, and bidding – all achieved with just a handful of colorful cards and tokens.

‘Charming’ is a word I use far too often in board game reviews, but it’s necessary here. Firstly, because Yotei charms the socks off you from the get-go. It’s a cute, compact game about building lovely towns at the foot of Japan’s Mt. Yotei. By drafting cards and farming potatoes, you choose which aspects of local culture and natural beauty will pull in the most awe-inspired tourists.

The art is twee, the vibes are cozy, and there’s an abundance of nature in the theme. Boom. Charming game.

But also, Charm is the literal currency that wins the game. You and up to three others are competing to earn the most Charm points – little love hearts printed on various cards. Generally, the more valuable a card, the more likely it is to net you Charm.

Let me explain what I mean by ‘value’. There are four types of cards in Yotei, and the first three are split into tiers. Tier one represents undeveloped lands and their natural elements. These might offer Charm and additional rewards, but typically, they’re the basic building blocks you need to acquire cards from higher tiers. There are three elements a card can offer (mountain, farmland, or forest).

Tier two cards are small developments that offer a low number of Charm points. If you’ve collected the right mix of elements from land cards, you can create Tourism Developments, Local Produces, or Forest Bounties. These in turn are required to craft specific tier three cards.

These are the fanciest, most expensive developments: Ski Resorts, intriguing Food Culture, and lavish Wilderness. Here’s where the big Charm points are on offer. You can only ever acquire two of these cards, though – once someone gets a second tier three card, the game ends, and the person with the most Charm wins.

How do we go about nabbing these cards, then? Each round is split into a Placement Phase and a Harvest Phase. During Placement, you’ll take turns placing an adorable standee on the card you intend to grab.

You can place your standee on any face-up card, but you can also turn that card face-down and then claim it. This will give you different rewards at harvest – a basic Forest element for tier-one cards, two potatoes at tier two, or a single popularity point at tier three. Alternatively, you can place your standee on top of the draw deck itself, taking that card, face-down, during Harvest.

As I mentioned, some cards have conditions you must meet to take the card, but you don’t have to worry about meeting these until Harvest. However, if a card has a Potato cost, you must place the required number of tokens immediately.

Potatoes may be a humble vegetable, but they’re crucial in Yotei. When you’re not spending them on placement requirements, you’ll use them on bidding cards. Non-bidding cards are automatically claimed by the first player to place a standee, but bidding cards must be won at auction. When you place a standee on a bidding card, you also place a box with a mystery number of potatoes inside. Place the most potatoes, and you win the card during Harvest.

Harvest begins when everyone has placed their three (or, in four-player games, two) standees. The first player resolves all their placements before passing to the next person. If you meet the requirements of a card (and possibly win its bid), you place it in front of your personal privacy screen – it’s now yours! So are any rewards in the top-right corner. That’s usually Charm points, but it might also be a Mystery card.

Here comes our fourth and final card type. Mystery cards are a random deck of bonuses that you keep hidden and can play at any time. You can cash them in for potatoes, or you can use their special ability. Some give you extra popularity if you still hold them at the end of the game (you’ve got a max of three at any time). Others let you place two standees at once, shuffle an entire row of cards, freeze cards out of a round, or steal potatoes.

That’s Yotei in a nutshell. This small handful of rules creates a delicate dance of bidding, bluffing, management, and take-that. What makes it so compelling is that there is always an interesting decision to make. Even if none of the cards available suit you, you can sabotage a rival by taking the flipside of something you know they covet. Everyone’s tiered cards are public knowledge, so you can easily strike them where it hurts.

Even when you don’t feel like being dastardly, you’ve a lot of choices to make about your own town-building. Do you race to claim a tier three card early, knowing you still need to grab a land card to meet its requirements? It’s more efficient than building your reserves over several turns, but a canny opponent could block you by claiming the exact card you need. Any player who doesn’t meet the requirements of a claimed card returns empty-handed during Harvest.

Additionally, is it better to bid or claim outright on your early turns? Only one person can claim a non-bidding cards, but those bidding boxes are finite, and you might miss out on an essential card unless you hurry.

During all this analysis, you can’t forget about potatoes, either. They put a ceiling on your bidding power, and they might slow your progress completely if you can’t pay a card’s entry requirements. Collecting potatoes is slow, and often inefficient, but it’s necessary to stop and refuel now and then.

Here is where I think Yotei’s theme really shines. There’s a tension between the game’s natural elements and its urban development that’s captured by a need for both efficient and inefficient turns.

Charming visitors to your village requires fancy ski resorts and festivals, but sometimes, you need to pause and wander the forest, or farm potatoes. The nature of the competition before us has capitalist undertones, but no one can live a truly optimized life, working at full capacity at all times. Yotei tells us that rest is an essential part of growth.

That wholesome message doesn’t detract from Yotei’s delightful backstabbing, though. This is still a ruthless game of economy. Risk might push you ahead, but it leaves you vulnerable to betrayal, and that can bring your carefully-planned turns crashing down around you. Some might find the high chance of failure frustrating, but it’s important to go with the flow. Yotei’s board state changes constantly, and there’s almost always a chance to recover if you keep a cool head.

Yotei’s gameplay loop isn’t varied enough to justify back-to-back games, but it makes a fantastic warm-up for any board game night. It has both beauty and bite.

Want to learn more about the year’s best board games? Check out our dedicated guide, or hit me up for more recommendations in the Wargamer Discord.

A review copy was provided by the publisher.

Source: Wargamer