When I think of Bonsai, the very first thing that comes to mind is Mr. Miyagi from the movie ‘The Karate Kid’. A Japanese Karate master, quietly pruning his little tree, and eventually the bonsai becomes a lesson for Daniel about inner peace.
Daniel: “But how do I know if my picture’s the right one?” Miyagi: “If come from inside you, always right one.” Also: “Close your eyes, concentrate. Think only tree…”
Bonsai, the Japanese art of tray planting, has a long and storied history. It’s culturally significant with thousands of years of development, but put simply, it’s the art of growing a plant in a pot, and carefully sculpting the tree as it grows to achieve a specific aesthetic. Now, I’m no arborist. Most of the plants that come into my possession end up worse for wear, which is why I turn to board games to satisfy my plant growing desires.
Designed by Rosaria Battiato, Massimo Borzì, and Martino Chiacchiera, Bonsai is a tile placement game for 1 to 4 players. Bonsai starts each player with a pot with a single wood hex buried in the dirt. A small deck of cards sits on the left side of a small board, then 3 cards are turned face up. Each turn consists of a player either taking a card from the board, potentially also taking plant tiles, depending on what slot that card was in, or to take the tiles from their supply and place them on their tree. Game play continues until the deck runs out, scores are calculated, and the player with the most points is the winner!
One of the nasty hooks of Bonsai is that at the start of each game, 3 public objectives are laid out, with 3 levels of accomplishment. These objectives are things like “have 6, 9, 12 wood tiles on your bonsai”, and the restriction is that the moment a player achieves an objective, they have to choose to either claim the achievement, or renounce it. If claimed, it’s worth end game points, but they are now ineligible for any of the higher achievements. And of course, once an objective is claimed by a player, no other player may claim the same objective.
This aspect gives Bonsai some teeth, players need to make the tough decision to renounce an objective and risk someone jumping ahead and claiming the top objective right out from under you.
Other than that, Bonsai is a tranquil game. Tiles come in and out from your supply, the cards you pull increase the number of tiles you can put out at a time, the number of tiles you can hold, and offer more endgame victory points. No one can affect your tree, nor can they steal the tiles you’ve already collected. The most interaction in the game comes from someone sniping the card you were hoping to take the next turn, or claiming an objective a turn before you were going to.
Bonsai is a short and sweet game. Barely any hard feelings between competitors, which makes it a great game for date night, or with players who are conflict averse. Bonsai isn’t complex, nor does it ask a lot of your brain. It’s a simple game, perfect to play after a long day of work, and at the end of the short game each player is treated to a beautiful and unique tree, adorned with a multitude of flowers and blossoms.
Yamataï, designed by Bruno Cathala and Marc Paquien and released by Days of Wonder in 2017, is a game in which players are placing ships between a dense archipelago, and either scooping up the coloured resources that are littered across most of the islands, or, if the island is empty, building one of the buildings to earn victory points and money.
There’s something inherently satisfying about watching spheres cascade down a gentle decline. Potion Explosion taps into that feeling with its five rows of marbles colliding and chaining together. Gizmos seems to promise a similar experience at first glance, with its eye-catching marble dispenser, but the games themselves are very different experiences.
