TOKYO SERIES TABLETOP GAMES

Announcing TOKYO CAPSULE HOTEL, Stories Behind Game Covers, And New Game Rules!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 12:27:33 AM

A few days ago I had a very insightful call with Cole Wehrle about game mechanics, which filled me with inspiration that I could not contain. I immediately went to my notebook to finish sketching out the concept I have been sitting on for about a year now, and it's turned into a beautiful start for TOKYO CAPSULE HOTEL! 

This will be the heavy installment that picks up the torch from METRO and TSUKIJI MARKET, with an incredible number of new mechanics and style. Some of the features will include:

• Multiple value systems including brand awareness, capital, reviews, and yen.
• A completely open bartering phase, where anything may be traded for anything, inspired by China Town!
• Multiple win conditions.
• Land that may be subdivided and sold like real Japan! 
• The ability to lease both land and entire hotels to other players.
• A review system, that requires you to actually stay in other player's capsule hotels. 
• And of course, amazing 3D pieces that create an immersive environment!

Are you as excited as I am about this game?! Have you stayed in a capsule hotel before? Let's hang out in the comments. Oh, and don't think I won't be using COIN LAUNDRY and JIDOHANBAIKI as direct expansions to this game, because I definitely will. The strength and value of the TOKYO SERIES continues!

One of my favorite parts of this series is going out in Tokyo to take the photos for the covers! There is a story and first hand inspiration behind every single game, from the concept all the way to the research and personal experience from my interest in the topic. Every game is an adventure that I want to share.

For TOKYO COIN LAUNDRY, I was very intrigued with the machines in Japan. They are quite different from any I've seen elsewhere in the world. Many have detergent already in the machine, and a separate console where you pay that automates the entire process and talks to you :o The diversity of coin laundromats, and the culture behind them in Japan is very special. It's something I recommend experiencing!

For TOKYO TSUKIJI MARKET I was lucky to return in time before the market moved so I could take photos. I woke up at 4am early last year and took the first metro train there. Usually they don't let anyone in to take photos where the unloading and action is taking place, but I blended in and snuck around to get beautiful shots of the action. I've also met many of the nice hard working stall owners, who are still there today selling fresh fish. 

For TOKYO JUTAKU, these photos were are all collected from the almost daily walks I would take through Tokyo. It is incredible how diverse the residential architecture is. Getting lost and seeing these homes is always a highlight of my time there, I would highly recommend taking a train to a random stop, getting off and walking down some small alleyways. Sometimes you'll find entire neighborhoods that can only be accessed by thin alleyways wide enough for only a single person. You have to be curious to be rewarded!

For TOKYO JIDOHANBAIKI, I lived this every day! I love trying the new drinks in Japan, they are so different. I mean, when are you going to drink Pikachu chocolate milk, yogurt soda, and sparkling grape jelly juice all in the same day?! When you're in Japan, that's when!  

Do you like hearing about the back story behind the games? I'm considering writing some in depth blog posts for my website if there is interest. Let me know!

There's a new game in town! The talented Stefan Brakman has brought us another unique game from the Netherlands. In "What the Sock?!" (pending title), it's a back and forth trade from a central pool with economics, betting, and of course laundry! Check out the rules in the newly updated and linked rulebook from the Kickstarter page, or read this blurry photo below. Note this game is still in testing.

I'll be adding more games as we reach toward the end of the campaign, stay tuned for those, more how to play videos, and exciting news!

New Stretch Goals and Praise Highlights!
over 5 years ago – Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 11:46:48 PM

We've got new stretch goals! I've looked back at the figures, and it was possible to add something extra to the $175k goal. Now we can unlock a HOST pin for TOKYO GAME SHOW, 5 new game show games themed around glow-in-the-dark, plus the original goal of a new pledge level for the 3 Japanese Designer games!

The $200k has also been revealed, which will be a design competition for a TOKYO SERIES game rule using the components from any of the games. You will be able to submit up to two game rules, then a select few other judges and myself will decide on a top three. This will be great for everyone, as we all gain new creative games to play, and the winners will receive a cash prize from a pool of $1,000, among other items :) I'll have more news if we get to the goal!

I've also shown the $250k stretch goal because it was too exciting to keep hidden. If we unlock it, there will be SPOT UV added to all of the boards in TOKYO TSUKIJI MARKET. This will really push the quality over the top.

Let's talk about PRAISE and what makes this game so unique and fun! Designed by Megumi Ebi, she made a very personal subject fun, by challenging the cultural norm of receiving insincere compliments in Japan. 

I originally took a prototype copy of Homero (the title of the original game) home with me from Essen in 2017, and immediately loved it after the first play. The original game is in Japanese, and due to some strange translations with the prototype I received, it became a wonderful and hilarious experience giving and receiving the fake compliments. I decided to run with this, and I kept the compliments very strange and mostly subtle, while adding in a set of emotion cards that cause even more confusion and chaos.

You'll walk away from this game feeling great! Trying to guess who is giving you a genuine compliment is much harder than you might think, and it also offers a great perspective on your own desires for acknowledgment as a human being. I cannot recommend this game highly enough! You will have to think about a strange way to praise your friends, which to me, is the most genuine way possible :)

Let's keep pushing for more stretch goals, and look forward to more updates soon!

Cactus!
over 5 years ago – Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 07:13:35 PM

Let's talk about Cactus! I love cactus, they come in so many varieties. When I was a kid growing up in Utah, I would often visit my grandparents in Nevada. They had cactus in their "yard" with so many unique characteristics. Some were taller than I was, some had big spikes that you could reach your hand past to touch them, and others had things stuck on them that blew in from somewhere else!

When I first played Tribe, the crazy juxtapositions you could achieve (like a person holding a rooster, fish, AND monkey! Check my photo below from the first game I played) were so hilarious and inspiring!

I had the opportunity to meet the team at itten, and talked with the designer of Tribe, Naotaka Shimamoto, about his inspiration for the game. He shared that the idea stemmed from watching people in Tokyo, how they dress similarly and split into tribes.

My idea for Cactus comes from a similar place, narrowing in on how nature has mutually beneficial relationships. Birds live in cactus, some animals drink from them, and they provide benefits for many desert dwellers. I want to celebrate these beautiful plants, and help everyone appreciate their personality as much as I do. Seeing this game on the table makes me feel the warmth of the sun, it feels like home! 

The boxes for the Japanese Designer games are all a very durable natural paper, with debossing! I think these are the first board game boxes with debossing, there are a few with embossing (a raised surface), but I wanted a different kind of texture. I'm really happy with the results! Running your finger over the box feels great.

On to the good stuff, the pieces! =D This game is beautiful, and it shares roughly 50% of the shapes from Tribe, only much smaller. The real challenge so far has been finding the right texture and friction. Each coating, each extra layer of paint, adds a completely different interaction with the pieces. You're looking at my hand made prototype, and 3 sets of samples with different finishes.

Here are the sets side by side (and apparently some demon cacti). On the far left is my hand made version, I like the rich metallic rust color on the T-Rex skull, so I'll probably move toward that color. The dark blue is also nice. Next is a completely smooth finish, with a clear matte top coat. These pieces are a bit too perfect for my taste, and they have no friction. 

Third from the left is painted wood, with no top coat. I think these are the winners. They have a bit less friction than I would like, but make up for it with a beautiful texture and color. It just makes the game a little more difficult. The final pieces on the right, are only dyed in color. They are a bit dull, and don't feel quite right.

After playing will all of the options, the painted but uncoated set is the winner. If everything could be exactly as my prototypes, I would probably choose that, but this not far off! It's a only a matter of matching the colors now. 

Look at that amazing wood grain! 

Oh yeah, go get it buddy! Look at this special cactus, celebrating his desert friends! It's like day of the dead in the desert. 

So how about gameplay? I'm glad you asked. The base game plays 2-4 players, and works almost the same as the original, but has a few less pieces, and no bag. I wanted this experience to be incredibly quick and simple to pick up and play, which I think worked well.

I've also been testing my solo variant, which was right under my nose all along! You start the game with no flowers, and play through as normal, aiming for a high score. If you ever run out of flowers after gaining them, you lose. You must play through the entire game before you can claim your high score, which also means it's possible to get a perfect, but let me tell you, it's NOT easy! I haven't managed yet and I think I'm pretty good at dexterity games.. (I played a game of Tokyo Highway against the designers in Tokyo once though and got DESTROYED!)

I want to thank itten for the opportunity to create this project, which means a lot to me. I love their work and I hope to celebrate it with the rest of the world.

Here's a nice message that I recorded with itten while in Tokyo, after our game night: 

Thank you for supporting us in our tabletop pursuits! I know itten appreciates the opportunity to create games for living as much as I do. どうもうありがとうございます！

Let's talk LAUNDRY!
over 5 years ago – Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 11:31:16 PM

To start off, this is the photo I sent out to the guest designers for components while the few copies I had were in the mail. It was a real challenge to get enough of these made, it's a lot of work to 3D print all of this, sew the clothes, make notepads, a sand timer (which was cut for costs, maybe a stretch goal can bring it back waaaay down the road), and get it all in a hand made box! 

So this is where you start! What next?! What would you think of, having this tight design constraint? Feel free to share in the comments :) I'm going to cover some really innovative designs that came out of this, it's safe to say the games would not be the same if the components weren't required to stay as they are, which makes this game very unique:

Back at PAX East 2018, I asked JR to do a guest design for Coin Laundry. We didn't get around to meeting and talking more on it until Gen Con, but things just clicked one day over breakfast! JR had this brilliant idea to use the machines in a skirmish appliance war, and we very quickly built the rules that followed together, such as using the bed sheet as a movement radius, and flicking detergents for sniping!

Here is a post game carnage shot of 'Wash Machine' with 'Vend Machine' rules added. You can use all of the TOKYO SERIES games as expansions to this appliance war, which adds tons of fun for drafting and playing with more players! 

I also have plans to add the Hexakun blind box characters into the game, which will give them unique abilities as commanders. More updates on that in the future. I think you'll enjoy this game, even if you don't play skirmish or war games (I don't like most war games). 

This single player game has you running a laundromat, trying to earn enough money to buy items you've always wanted! The really unique and fun thing about this game is, you have to predict what items you think you can buy right when the game starts! You'll only be able to buy 1 per round, if you don't buy them all by the end of the game you lose and go in to debt! 

Oh yes, lets get a sweet new umbrella and catzilla toy! MUJI plant, yes please!

Here's a shot from the new 'How to Play' video that will be uploaded to the KS page soon. If you manage to purchase all of the items you you could before the game ends, add up their yen value and that is your end score!

COIN LAUNDRY RPG?!?? WHAT! I was sooooo excited to start working on this, and once Luke Crane was on board with it, things took off in the right direction immediately! Luke is a talented RPG designer known for his games such as 'The Burning Wheel', 'Mouse Guard', and 'Inheritance'.

We've been meeting weekly for quite a while now to sculpt the game between play testing sessions, and it has evolved into a such a unique, wonderful, and strange experience! You will complain, you will give platitudes, you may have your socks stolen, and you will definitely feel something.

Here's one of the prototype character sheets, which tears off like a real laundromat receipt. 

I'll showcase more games further into the campaign, but now, lets talk about development!

It has been a long journey from the concept of Coin Laundry to where it is now! Before I set out designing any games, I wanted to have equal footing for all of the designers involved in this project, so I only thought of game components that might lend themselves to different uses. Of course, I would never be able to predict exactly how they would be used, but that's the starting point that works for me. 

Back in the beginning of 2018, I knew I was going to need some serious prototypes to get this project off the ground. I bought a 3D printer, borrowed a sewing machine, and set to work! The absolute requirements were: Real fabric sewn clothes, operable washers and dryers, detergent, magazines, and newspaper. All the things you need for laundry!

Let me just say that you are getting a real deal with this game. There are over $12k in molds, and all of the clothes are hand sewn.. PLUS all of the other items in the box. Whew. Not to mention the endless hours and investment I put in to the design process. See more below :)

This was the very first washing machine I ever printed! It's actually quite big, and had a few problems. You'll notice it's very tall and wide, but quite thin. This had to change in order to fit 6 machines in the box. The front window doesn't have much depth because of this, and the handle is very very small. It was a good first try! 

Next I tried some new proportions, moved the handle to the top left, and incorporated a hinge system that used a small metal rod. This worked really great for a while, but the hinges tended to break from being too thin. The windows were now rounded and really deep, which I think adds to the feeling of a real washing machine. 

This is a summary photo of design changes made to the machines, each one with a few minor tweaks here or there. What's not pictured is a box full of machines, because I had printed a full set of each for testing. 

Fast forward to the final machines, and you have the washer on the left and dryer on the right. Notice the depth of the window, with a nice foggy finish, expressive knobs and panels, and plenty of open room inside for laundry! 

And finally the first tooling master! The machine on the left is from Panda, based on my designs, with a new heavy duty hinge and clicking closure. It's monochromatic for now as it's made from resin. There are a few tweaks to make, such as thinning the back wall slightly so light can shine through to see laundry inside (for 'hidden laundry'),  and making sure the inside is as clean and open as possible. We are almost there already!

Next up, fabric clothes! I had to take a risk on these, because there's nothing like it in the board game industry to go off of. I have no experience in doll clothes or cost, so I decided I would just take a chance and see what happened. I hand sewed 10 sets of clothes for the guest designers in this game... It was really hard, because the clothes are so small.   

Here's a close up of the shirts and pants I sewed, they are fraying a bit from use.   

Bras, underwear, and socks! The prototypes turned out great! They obviously suffered from heavy use, but I was on the right track. I sent photos to Panda, and after they looked around to outsource the production, they decided they would tackle sewing the clothes themselves...

And then, there were samples! My clothes are on the bottom row. The first set of samples were HUGE in comparison. Just look at those shirts, it's like a giant ate a washing machine. I sent them back to the drawing board, and requested the black clothes be changed to a dark grey. You can see the newest set of samples, about the right size, on the top row.   

The newest set of samples.   

Underwear and socks. I'll likely be moving back to the black fabric, as these feel like you should be playing the game in your pajamas with the heather gray color.

What do you think of all this? Let me know in the comments! I'll cover the amazing tear off receipt notepads, cards, yen, magazines, and newspapers, in a future update. Thanks for reading, I poured my should into this game, and I hope it shows :)

Blind Box Toys, and Hexakun!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Jan 19, 2019 at 12:36:20 AM

Big update on the blind box toys. First off, there are two new designs! Secondly, after some really great feedback from backers, I've decided to make each pop box include 12 toys, and have a guarantee of getting all 12 designs if you buy the pop box. This means that I've also rebalanced the rarity to 1/12, and the blind boxes will be shuffled in the pop box itself. 

You can now add-on 1 blind box figure for $10, or the whole 12 design set for $100, saving you $20 and guaranteeing you receive all of the awesome characters! These detailed colorful figures stand about 2" tall. You will also be able to add them in to several games for gameplay such as 'wash machine', 'vend machine', and future releases. 

Be sure to read more below about Hexakun the octopus below. If you are a retailer interested in carrying these special blind box toys, send me a message for quantities and pricing.    

Who? What? Why? Get ready for the star of the show! Hexakun is an octopus born with 6 tentacles (all other octopus have 8 tentacles). I can't remember exactly when I met Hexakun, but it was in Tokyo, and ever since, we've had a wonderful love/hate friendship (read below). 

On the last update we covered 3 fun facts about Tsukiji Ghost Crab, so now lets jump into some unique points on Hexakun!

Point 1 - Hexakun LOVES wearing hats. Not just putting on hats, but basically anything that fits on an octopus head. It's no strange sight to see Tsukiji Ghost Crab riding around up there either.

Point 2 - Hexakun loves mimicking Jordan. I have no idea why this happens, hence the love/hate friendship, but I like Hexakun enough to get over it... Why.. 

Point 3 - Hexakun can color shift. Literally any color, any time, there's no limit! This is a normality for octopus, but it's still surprising when you're not expecting it (plus it's really cool)! Who knows what color, or item, you'll see when you look for our new friend!

Before I go, I want give a special thank you, to you, for supporting the project. I also want to especially thank those who have spread the word on social media. Everyone here has been overwhelmingly positive, and it makes all the difference! 

On the next update, we talk LAUNDRY!

Oh! One more quick thing. Did you know our friends at itten (the original publishers of Tribe, the game Cactus is based on) have a live Kickstarter for their new game, Stonehenge and the Sun?! If you like interesting, unique dexterity games, I highly recommend you check it out! There's only 13 hours left on the campaign: Stonehenge and the Sun.