The world of gaming is an ever-expanding one, with thousands upon thousands of games released every year. There are numerous novel, innovative, exciting games from locations far and wide, and exploring specific locales can be both interesting and rewarding.
Over the years, I’ve enjoyed exploring games made in Japan. From publishers like itten, Oink, and Saashi and Saashi to games from smaller or more focused publishers, there’s so much to explore. It’s not that games from Japan are inherently more interesting, better-designed, or more innovative, but I strongly believe that focusing in on any one region will reveal deeper levels of gameplay variety.
And, of course, prominent publishers will often have a design sense and style that might resonate with you. itten has a penchant for games with tremendous table presence and a great dexterity element. Oink games almost exclusively come in uniformly small boxes, packing as much as possible into as little a space as they can manage. Saashi and Saashi produces some truly excellent card games with simple-yet-evocative art. And there’s so much more to explore out there, too.
Here are five games first published in Japan that are worth checking out. Four of them are easily available in the U.S., and one can very easily be proxied with just four tokens. This is just a hint of what’s out there — so take a look. Maybe you’ll want to dive deeper, like I did. And if you do, let me know. That’ll help me prioritize writing about more obscure games — but for now, I’ll try to keep things accessible for you, the reader, and for me.
Tokyo Highway
There’s a surprisingly strong crop of dexterity games to have come from Japanese designers, and that’s especially true for the publisher Itten. Tokyo Highway is one of their games that’s found wider release through global distribution, and with good reason. It’s a really compelling game in which you build popsicle stick highways, try to cross over other people’s highways, and place little cars on your own. It’s a game that tests your patience and dexterity in equal measure.
There’s nothing like Toyko Highway out there. Toward the end of each game, you’ll find the tension heightening as the dexterity required of you ramps up. Someone will almost inevitably bring things toppling down, and honestly, that’s usually me. The game’s all the more fun for it.
Published by itten. Reasonably widely available, usually around $60.
Yeti in the House
Finding crytpids in the wild is difficult, but finding them in your home? Well, that’s another story altogether. In Yeti in the House, you divide into two groups. All but one player — the search team — takes a mountain token, places it somewhere in the room, then leaves the room. The remaining player places a yeti token and two footprint tokens somewhere hidden in the room. Importantly, the yeti must be able to see the mountain. Finally, take a photograph of the yeti. Make it out of focus, blurry, edit it to your heart’s content, just make sure it’s at least slightly legible. The search team re-enters the room, and they’ll be tasked with figuring out where the yeti has been placed with just the photograph and the mountain to go on — and they can’t go searching for it; they must simply try to deduce the location from the limited information. But if they find either footprint instead, they’ll lose — so guessing wildly doesn’t do anyone any good.
Yeti in the House is so far removed from any game I’ve ever played. It plays with space in a way that few games have tried, and it comes in a box about the size of one of those little match boxes you have tucked away in a junk drawer for candles. It’s such a novel idea. I’m also going to tell you a secret: You don’t need to buy this game to play. You could take this ruleset and try it with your own things — maybe a slightly oversized meeple will do the trick. Most of the games on this list should be within your grasp in the U.S., but this one is probably an exception. All that being said, if you get a chance to pick this up, and the game sounds interesting, go for it.
Published by itten. Difficult to find, but there are copies in the BGG Marketplace if you’re not interested in playing this one with proxy components.
Welcome to the Dungeon
Welcome to the Dungeon was originally published in Japan as Dungeon of Mandom and is a press-your-luck game in which players are basically seeding a dungeon with enemies for other players, taking away pieces of equipment, and trying to weigh the right time to pass their turn and let another player risk their precious health points. If you do end up going in the dungeon, it’ll likely be filled with enemies that’ll deal you damage. If you lose in the dungeon, you’re out. Players will either work to be the last player still in the game or the first player to have made it through the dungeon twice without dying.
This one should be pretty easy to find at most game stores, as it’s published in English by prominent publisher IELLO.
Published by IELLO. Widely available, usually for about $15.
Love Letter
Love Letter is easily the most popular game on this list. Love Letter is a game that you can find in various themes of your choosing. Batman? Yep! The Hobbit? You guessed it. Star Wars? You better believe it. And there’s a reason it’s found success as a re-themeable game over the last decade. It’s a simple card game, with just 16 cards to play. A turn is simple: You’ll draw a card, then you’ll play a card. If you’re the last player out, you win. But there are plenty of ways to lose, and there’s enough strategy to make this easy-to-teach game engaging but not taxing. It’s a great way to pass the time.
This one is now published by Z-Man Games, and like I said above, it comes in a plethora of themes. Choose the one you want. I won’t judge.
Published by Z-Man Games. Widely available, usually for about $15.
Scout
Rounding out today’s list is Oink’s Scout, which was one of three games nominated for the coveted Spiel des Jahres prize in 2022. (Cascadia, which is also great, won this year.) This one’s a “ladder-climbing” card game, which basically means that players must play higher-value cards than the last-played cards. In Scout, cards have two values on them, giving you some interesting flexibility in how you play. That sounds easy, right? Well, you can’t rearrange your cards after the start of a round, though you can initially rotate your cards to use the values on one side or the other. But you can’t change that throughout the game, and you have to play cards from your hand in the order they’re in — so if you’re playing a 3-4-5 run, they all have to be next to each other in your hand. It’s a wickedly clever little game, and it deserves every accolade it’s received so far. In fact, it’s the first game nominated from a Japanese designer.
Published by Oink Games. $22 in the Geek Game Shop.
Some recently featured games
I wrote about Take the A Chord last week in my board game gift guide. It’s a jazz-themed trick-taking game from Saashi and Saashi.
In my guide to trick-taking games, I wrote about Maskmen from Oink, a ladder climbing game about finding the strongest wrestler. I also talked about Trick-Taking in Black and White, which comes from a much smaller publisher and is every bit as fun.