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The sushi production and distribution in the city of Mininogata is controlled by several feline clans. Leading those clans is the Kumichō, supreme leader of the syndicate, but he is now an old cat and soon will have to decide who will succeed him.
In Neko Syndicate you will lead one of those clans and you will prove the Kumichō who deserves to inherit his position, building an efficient chain of command and fulfilling the great amount of sushi demanded by the population. In addition, you will be rewarded if you are the fastest to achieve the missions by the Kumichō.
During the game you will build and walk down a card’s pyramidal structure which represents both a city district under your control and your chain of command. This pyramidal structure will be used as a board and action tree which will allow you to cook sushi and transport it into different delivery zones, trying to achieve the missions by the supreme leader. You will have 15 turns to obtain as many prestige points as possible to please the supreme leader Kumichō and, therefore, win the game.
Neko Syndicate is a "Thinky-filler" by Dani García, featuring an innovative tableau building mechanic where cards are both the actions and the goals to achieve: fast set-up, simultaneous play, low interaction and brain burner in a 30 minutes easy to play hard to master beautiful game.
—description from the publisher
- Cat-driven sushi syndicate with order fulfillment and neighborhood control.
- A clan of cats delivering sushi across neighborhoods while pursuing missions.
- Light-hearted, mission-driven, with a focus on efficiency and scoring across rounds.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Compound Scoring — score by level with multipliers related to the level of the card stack.
- Deck building — draw and assemble a deck of minion cards to push forward and enable actions.
- deck-building — draw and assemble a deck of minion cards to push forward and enable actions.
- end game bonuses — move to a concluding phase to check missions and finalize scoring.
- end-of-round scoring and multipliers — score by level with multipliers related to the level of the card stack.
- endgame check (Kicho's meeting) — move to a concluding phase to check missions and finalize scoring.
- Layer building — build a pyramid of minion cards; activate actions from the current level as you progress down the pyramid.
- level-based action resolution — resolve actions on cards by level, with higher levels offering more activations.
- Movement and placement — move delivery resources between neighborhoods and place cubes during actions.
- pyramid construction and activation — build a pyramid of minion cards; activate actions from the current level as you progress down the pyramid.
- Resource management — manage sushi-type cubes and warehouse resources to fulfill orders and deliver to neighborhoods.
- Resource management and delivery — manage sushi-type cubes and warehouse resources to fulfill orders and deliver to neighborhoods.
- set collection / mission scoring — complete missions for points; scoring also depends on delivered cubes and completed cards.
- Simultaneous Actions — structured into 15 rounds with two phases that can run in parallel.
- simultaneous play across rounds — structured into 15 rounds with two phases that can run in parallel.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Syndicate this is a game for one to four players
- you lead a clan of cats and are trying to become the next kitro by fulfilling Sushi orders across your various neighborhoods
- and that's how you play Neco Syndicate
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- you are somebody's reason to smile
- we are so close to 30,000 Garden members
- thank you all so much for watching and for your support
- I am leaving for Japan and I cannot wait to document it