In Haru Ichiban, or "The Wind of Spring", two apprentice gardeners compete to use this wind to their advantage to create harmonious patterns of their blossoms upon the lilypads.
Each gardener has eight flower buds numbered 1-8, with three of those buds being in hand at the start of a round. Sixteen lilypads are placed in the 5x5 pond, with one of them turned to its dark side.
Each gardener simultaneously chooses a reveals a bud, with the player with the lower number becoming the Little Gardener and the other becoming the Grand Gardener. In order:
The Little Gardener places one of his colored blossoms on the dark lilypad.
The Grand Gardener places one of his colored blossoms on the lilypad of his choice.
The Little Gardener moves one lilypad to an adjacent space, possibly moving other lilypads at the same time.
The Grand Gardener flips one unoccupied lilypad to its dark side.
Each gardener takes a new bud.
As soon as a gardener creates a specific pattern with blossoms of his color, he scores points: 1 point for a 2x2 square, 2 points for a horizontal or vertical row of four blossoms, 3 points for a diagonal row of four blossoms, and 5 points for a row of five blossoms. If the gardener has fewer than five points, the gardeners reset the board and start a new round with three buds of their eight; if the gardener has five or more points, the game ends and he wins!
- tactile and approachable
- obscure title for some
- construction with stacking blocks
- abstract dexterity/stacking
- modern abstract
- Goblet
- Connect Four
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- stacking / balance — build structures with balance constraints
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I don't know very much about wargames I haven't played many war games
- these games are for adults
- these are the vast majority these are available easily
- abstract strategy games don't really look like that anymore
- these are not children's items they're for adults to have a serious time together
References (from this video)
- beautiful components
- clear scoring rules across rounds
- multi-round scoring can take time to optimize
- pattern matching with tokens
- pond with lily pads
- Inch
- Gobl et al.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Pattern scoring — form patterns of flowers across rounds; higher scores for diagonals
- Tile reveal and push — select flowers, reveal, then push lily pads to shift layout
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "these are games that can largely be taught in a minute or two"
- "they can be learnt practically straight away"
- "short frame of time"
- "not going to be for everybody but there's still a lot to explore"
- "the simplicity of the mechanisms... is fascinating"