Kimono Memories

• What's Eric Playing?

1 – 2 players.
Play time: 15 – 30 minutes.
BGG Link
Logged plays: 2

Full disclosure: A review copy of Kimono Memories was provided by EmperorS4 Games.

Heading to PAX West tomorrow! There’s probably going to be some slowdown, but I’m bringing my laptop with me so I can write with all the downtime I definitely believe I’m going to have, for some reason. I’m trying to post to Instagram more, lately, so keep an eye on that for games and videos and such, I guess. In the meantime, we’re going to start seeing a mix of Fall Convention Content here, so mixing up a bit of PAX West, Essen, and eventually, PAX Unplugged games. I’m always excited to see something new from EmperorS4, so, Kimono Memories looks great; let’s dive right in.

In Kimono Memories, you play as rival photographers seeking to take the best photos and make the best memories as you travel through Kyoto. As you get permission to take photos of people, you create new memories and get to capture the color and the style of the city you’re in, which is nice. Fashion is an important part of culture, anyways. Also, there are cats, and who doesn’t want some cat photos? Try your best to take the best photos and you might just win the day!

Contents

Setup

Not a ton! Each player gets a starting card:

That demonstrates which side of the board they should be on. Place the board as indicated and add the Pattern Scoring Markers to the center spaces:

Shuffle the other cards and place eight of them face-up in a circle around the board:

Set two face-up in the Reward Display, by the deck. Set the Pattern Markers, Scoring Tiles, and the Cat Tokens aside:

You should be ready to start! Choose a player to go first.

Gameplay

I’m covering the Expert Mode here, but I’ll briefly mention the Basic Game as well later on. Try not to get too excited.

So, your goal here is to create the best photo album as you move down the street taking pictures! Each turn, you can move your photographer one, two, or three cards forward. Whichever you choose, take the last card you moved over, and that’s the card you keep! You get to place it in your album.

When you place a card, you can place it either to the left or right of an existing card, or above the connection between two cards (making a pyramid). As you do, you’ll advance one of the Pattern Scoring Markers towards you (provided it matches the color). If you create a pattern between two cards, you’ll also potentially get to place a Pattern Token or a Cat Token, if both halves match (or one or both are wild). Those let you also advance the matching Pattern Scoring Marker. So that’s cool.

Play continues until there are only two cards left. They’re added to the Reward Display for final scoring.

For final scoring, start by scoring each of the Patterns. The player with the Pattern Scoring Marker on their side of the board scores that Pattern Marker and the matching points amount. They also, starting from 3, get to add one card from the Reward Display to their photo album, as usual. This may move subsequent Pattern Scoring Markers (you can’t move a 3 if you’ve already scored that one, for instance), which may influence later scoring. If a Pattern Scoring Marker is in the center, nobody gets the Pattern Marker or a bonus card.

Finish up, then give each player the number of Cat Tokens they’ve claimed squared as points, and give players 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 … points for icons visible on the 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th … level of their pyramids! Score Prop Cards and the player with the most points wins!

For the Basic Game, play without points. Your goal is to collect more Pattern Markers than your opponent; the player with more wins! Ties are broken by Cat Tokens.

Player Count Differences

Not major ones, since I don’t usually write about solo modes for games since they play so differently. I usually just review pure solo games, like the Button Shy games, or I just mention that a solo mode exists. Here, there’s a solo mode! You’ll be competing against a rudimentary AI player and trying to collect Pattern symbols.

Otherwise, it’s just a two-player game.

Strategy

  • Try to keep your icons open, but also, high up! The higher your icons on your cards are in your pyramid, the more points you’ll get from them at the end of the game. That shouldn’t necessarily preclude you covering them up, but, it might influence which cards you want to place where to achieve maximal open spots.
  • Don’t sleep on Prop Cards! They’re really good ways to get a bunch of points, and having one can often put your opponent in an awkward spot. Do they grab the card that will affect your majority in a certain color, or do they ignore it and let you get a card that will further your score along certain Props? That’s their problem.
  • There are only three 3s, and getting that locked down in Expert Mode is a great way to get to place cards later in the game. You can use that to add a card from the Reward Display to your album, which is a great way to zero out a category you’re barely losing or to potentially break a tie in your favor.
  • That said, don’t sleep on the high-value groups! 7 points ain’t nothing. Sometimes, as they say, points are just points. The player with more points wins, so don’t get complacent and let your opponent take all the high-scoring stuff just because you’re playing at strategy along the lower end.
  • Oh, also don’t forget to get Cat Tokens! They earn their number squared in points, so they add up fast if your opponent isn’t paying attention. You go from 9 to 16 to 25 very quickly, so, don’t let your opponent do that. Take a few Cat Tokens for the sole purr-pose of keeping their overall benefit depressed. It’s just good planning.
  • Getting Pattern Tokens is pretty necessary to winning. You’ll need to focus on trying to get Pattern Tokens and place cards to take majority in each color. Just playing cards is good, but getting a Pattern Token effectively doubles your turn’s impact. If one player is playing two turns to another player’s one, they’re likely going to win.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

  • Maisherly Chan’s art continues to impress and amaze. This game looks so good! I really like how Hanamikoji, as a series, continues to use color and aesthetic to the game’s advantage, and a significant source of that creativity is Maisherly Chan and the game’s art. Big fan.
  • I really like how they’ve applied the tug-of-war to this more rondel movement-focused game. I think I just find circular movement relaxing, and here, it continues to do so. My biggest issue with Hanamikoji was my distaste for I-cut-you-choose games, and I still really liked the game,
  • The Basic and Expert games are both fun on their own! I do really appreciate the extra complexity that comes with the Expert games. I like that a lot of games are including multiple complexity options in their games, these days. It’s great for me when I have to teach games to folks who don’t play as much or as many as I do, since you can slowly ramp them into a more complex game if they’re into it.
  • The Sudden Victory rules are fun too, if you want to play a dangerous game. It’s a bit less likely that you’ll win since your opponent would have to be asleep at the wheel at a few key instances, but it’s possible! I wonder if the rules would deprioritize Prop Cards since they’re not as likely to get you the Pattern Scoring movement that you need to survive.
  • I love this box size, though you hardly need it if you are looking for a portable game. It still works! It’s a good, reliable, and consistent box size. It’s not so small that you could fit it into a purse, but you could fit a lot of these little friends into a standard game bag for a game night and have a lot of good options.

Mehs

  • I don’t totally understand how you end up using the scoreboard on the back of the board without moving the board’s contents, but we’re not meant to know all things. I guess you could pass those scoring tokens out and then use the back of the board, but it feels like a weird extra movement that isn’t necessarily going to happen until we run out of scoring sheets or just doing the math on our phones.
  • It’s odd that the more official-looking rulebook is the Expert Mode; it’s usually the reverse that’s true. Not odd in a bad way! Just caught my attention.

Cons

  • Unless you’re a really smart planner (and I am not, dear reader), you’re going to have to move your pyramid at some point in the game and that always sucks a bit. Nothing less fun than needing to move around a bunch of cards that aren’t connected beyond just being on top of each other. It’s a hassle, especially at the key junction when you need to move them (having a bunch of cards).

Overall: 9 / 10

Overall, I think Kimono Memories is fantastic! It expertly converts the I-cut-you-choose of Hanamikoji, which I’m not over the moon about, to a interesting and dynamic drafting game with some fun circular movement to keep me engaged the entire time. Maisherly Chan’s art, of course, continues to be another cornerstone of what’s keeping these games at the top of my list. There’s a real expertise with color work that makes the game feel classic and artisan even when it’s the newest thing on the block. It also makes the series feel nicely cohesive, especially since the Hanamikoji family of games really is smartly focusing in on challenging and entertaining two-player experiences. I think this is my favorite up front, though Hanamikoji’s dynamic style with the various expansions is also compelling. I’m allowed to be a bit wishy-washy; it’s my website. I do strongly recommend that players leave plenty of space for the game itself. It’s deceptive! You think, there’s no way my pyramid is going to be that tall, and then it is. Precluding that, however, I think EmperorS4 has a really good game on their hands, here. It’s quick, it’s relatively simple, and it’s got a great back-and-forth between players. Stays interesting and stays challenging. Just don’t fall too far behind. If you want to return to the world of Hanamikoji, you enjoy two-player tugs-of-war, or you just like cats and cat tokens, I’d solidly recommend Kimono Memories! It’s been great.

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