We're So Board!

Episode 40 - Tokaido (Feat. The Geek Squared Show)

• We're So Board • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Today we have some special friends join us on our journey through feudal japan! Emma and Tilly from the Geek Squared Show are discussing the zen experience of playing Tokaido! In this episode we discuss this wonderful game and describe our own journeys from Kyoto to Tokyo. Full disclosure we did play an electronic version of this as Emma and Tilly aren't exactly local here! Listen to this special episode to find out what kind of challenges and hilarious events occur as a result of using the infamous TableTop Simulator!

Game Info:
2-5 Players
45 Minute Playtime
Ages 8+

THE GEEK SQUARED SHOW
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Rachel:

Hello and welcome. I'm Rachel.

Jake:

I'm Jake,

Rachel:

and we're so board. The Podcast where each episode we take a close look at a tabletop game and discuss our personal experiences with said game to help answer the question, Will this cure our boredom?

Jake:

That's right, we look at the mechanics complexity and replay ability in a game to determine if it's the perfect alternative to say,

Tilly:

having your laptop commit un alive before trying to record this episode,

Emma:

and then also having every technical issue we could possibly have before recording this episode.

Rachel:

Whoa. Hey, welcome Emma and Tilly, welcome to our podcast.

Emma:

Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Jake:

bear, bear, bear bear.

Emma:

Sound the horse and sound.

Rachel:

It's just Jake, Jake is the sound board.

Emma:

relatable, relatable,

Rachel:

Emma and Tilly are from the Geek Squared Show podcast. Feel free to go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourselves and introduce yourself.

Emma:

So I'm Emma beside me is Tilly. And yes, we are hosts of the Geek Squared show, which is a podcast we host where we talk about the things that we talk about which consist of

Tilly:

movies, TV, books, comic show, comic show comic shows,

Emma:

pretty much anything that inspires us, and we just love to have a good old conversation about it. We release episodes every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. So check us out if you think that might be something you're into.

Rachel:

Yes, we've got Emma and Tilly on our show. And they are here to talk about a game that we've been playing together. And just to be fair, we're also on their show, I think having a more interesting conversation, to be honest, debating who's the best Batman?

Emma:

Yes, it was very enlightening. I have some different opinions after that. And I would like to throw some fists, but I will refrain.

Rachel:

It was brutal. Before we get into the game that we're talking about today, Jake, real quick. Tell us all about streaming.

Jake:

Streaming is when a content creator and a computer love each other very, very much. And they get together and they make stuff or they play stuff and other people watch them play stuff.

Tilly:

So it's porn.

Emma:

Tilly, I don't think you're old enough for this conversation.

Jake:

We stream on Twitch weekly on Wednesday nights we stream board games at twitch.tv/so board Podcast. I'm not sure what we're going to be playing when this episode releases or what we will have just played because this is kind of recorded in the future. So I don't know. That being said, I am also streaming on Twitch and I just got a Nintendo 64 controller so I'm going to be doing some more retro streams. Castlevania is on the list. Starfox is on list. Donkey Kong 64 That's a good one. Mystical Ninja. Those are all coming up soon. But I'm at twitch.tv/naughty Doc 541 That's NAU gh t YDO C 541. And it's not really consistent right now. It's whenever I'm not working so but make sure you have notifications turned on so you can see when I'm on.

Rachel:

Alright guys, tell us what game are we talking about today?

Tilly:

So guy no crisis.

Unknown:

ToKaido

Rachel:

This is an awesome little game where you are taking your walk across Japan. It is so cute and just wholesome and I love it.

Jake:

Yeah. Tokaido is actually designed by Antoine Bauza with art by Xavier, Ginny fee Duren, published by fun forge games in 2012. And fun fact, I didn't know when we started playing or when we were playing earlier. But Tokaido means eastern sea Road, which is what you're walking along.

Emma:

Yes. ToKaido is actually one of the most traveled roads in Japan.

Rachel:

Learn something new. Is it realistic to walk from Kyoto to Edo in four days?

Jake:

According to Google Maps, it would take you 98 hours to walk from Kyoto to Tokyo.

Rachel:

Hmm, that's pretty accurate X will oh well, but the thing is, is that you're not walking for 24 hours straight.

Tilly:

Not true. You might be

Rachel:

it's gonna take you more than four days to walk this road.

Emma:

Yeah, I mean, as per the time period, you could also take a horse drawn cart. True, or a donkey or a donkey?

Jake:

But yes, it will take 98 hours so it's almost almost accurate.

Rachel:

Yeah, okay. But yeah, so that's basically the synopsis of the game. We Are travelers that are walking across the Tokaido Road and traveling from Kyoto to Edo. And your goal is to gain the most victory points while traveling by doing things like meeting fellow travelers stopping at temples, capturing panorama paintings, visiting hot springs and buying souvenirs. Alright, Emma, do you want to describe what the board looks like and kind of the play order and what the travelers are?

Tilly:

For sure.

Emma:

So the board is set up in a linear path to your destinations, but many locations, you can stop along the way. There's hotsprings. There's merchants, there's places where you can stop and get your panoramas. There's also ins where everybody gathers before we set out for another day, at the end of each day we gather at these ins, the person furthest behind all the path is always the next person to go, which can result in sometimes someone going multiple times in a row that is a popular strategy. And there's also different travelers that each person can be that provide unique powers. And start with a different number of coins you can use to buy food and souvenirs. Until you

Rachel:

tell us about the locations you can stop

Tilly:

that Well, boy would I ever like to do that. So we've got a bunch of different locations, we've got the village where you draw three souvenir cards and choose any number to buy, you can opt to skip out and buy no souvenirs, souvenirs are organized into one of four categories. We've got food and drink small objects, art and clothing. And a unique categories of souvenirs are worth more points. And the person with the most souvenirs at the end also gets three bonus points. There's also a farm where you get three coins from the reserve. There's also different panorama spots where you can gain one piece of the respective panoramas. So we've got the rice paddy, we've got the mountains, and we've got the ocean. Once you gather all of the cards for each panorama, you get bonus points on top of that as well. Then we also have the hotsprings where you gain a random card with either two or three victory points.

Jake:

So there's also the temple location. This allows you to donate anywhere between one to three coins to the temple, which each grant you one victory point per coin. And at the end of the game, there is an end of game bonus for the player who has donated the most player who has donated the most gets 10 victory points, second place gets seven, and it goes down from there down to the fourth player getting to also we have encounter spaces these are where you're going to be meeting people or travelers on the road. And you'll get to talk to them and they'll offer you different rewards. Some of the rewards include victory points, coins, free souvenirs, free donations to the temple and free panorama pieces. And the inn is the last location that we're going to talk about on the actual board. This is where everyone stops to sleep and eat. This is mandatory. This is kind of like the rounds, if you will. This is what separates when you change turn order and things like that. So the first person to arrive draws meal cards equal to the number of players plus one, and then chooses one to purchase for themselves. The next player to arrive chooses from the remaining meal cards and so on and so forth. Players cannot have more than one have the same meal card at any given time in the game. And meals are always worth six victory points, which is nice, because you're always going to have 20 something at the end of the game. Assuming you can pay for it. Assuming you can pay for it, yes. Now the person who spends the most money on meals will get three bonus victory points at the end of the game. And the last person to arrive at the end actually gets to go first into the next section of the game. And the person who arrived right before them go second, and third, and then fourth, continuing. So the first person to get there. So the last one to leave last one to get this first one that leaves.

Rachel:

And I mean that's basically the game. So you are just traveling along this path, you get to choose to stop at these various locations along the way, you can go as far ahead or not as you want. Some locations offer two spots that can hold two travelers at a time and some only offer one, but you just kind of go down until somebody gets to the end. And then that person is done until everybody gets to the end. And then it kind of goes again. And there are three rounds, essentially that you're playing through like that. A couple of variants that you can have in the game is you can do it like a beginner's mode where you playing without the travelers that give you the special abilities. You can do a return trip basically where you're playing in the opposite direction and traveling from Edo on the right to Kyoto on the left. That doesn't make much of a difference. It's just like the special places that you go to are in a little bit of a different order. Gastronomy means that You only draw enough meal cards for the number of players instead of doing the plus one. So that gives you a little bit less of an option when you go to buy your meals. And then there's a preparations variant that kind of offsets the benefits that people get from arriving first or last at the end. So the person who arrives last at the end actually has to pay an extra coin, because they're going to be the first one to leave and get to choose what they do on their way out. While the first person who arrived at the end actually gets two coins, to kind of pay for the fact that they are going to be the last one to leave. But that's basically the game. So let's talk about our experiences. This is where it's gonna be fun, huh?

Emma:

We have had a lot of fun playing this game. I think it is only fair to start with the chaos. That is Tabletop Simulator. if we may. You know what, Tabletop Simulator is great. However, you have the freedom to do pretty much whatever you want. There was a lot of throwing pieces around tipping over coin bowls, flipping the table. Yeah, either when things weren't going our way or what we between turrets, whatever we felt like it just poking fun of each other. Yeah, just because we're bored. Yeah. And we like to mess with each other.

Tilly:

If you've got the option to flick a piece, launching it into the stratosphere, I think you just kind of have to

Emma:

mandatory.

Rachel:

Yeah, so I think Jake and Tilly both kind of took this as a goal in life while playing on Tabletop Simulator. And I just want to say like, this is nothing new for Jake, this is my first time playing with Tilly on here. But why are the guys trying to cause chaos.

Emma:

Because it's what they do. Now, it was great, though, it added another layer of fun when things I wouldn't say got a little stressful. But whenever we had to consult the rulebook, and there was just some dead air, we kinda just got to fool around and laugh at ourselves. So it was great.

Jake:

I liked the scheme a lot, because it's kind of chill. I'm only batting 50/50 for this game. So I don't you know, I don't have any, like special love for it or hate for it. It's a very cool experience. You're just going and traveling and getting these different pictures. Basically, I like it kind of reminds me of parks almost.

Rachel:

I agree with that. Again, it's the same kind of concept where you can stop anywhere along the way that you want. And you're receiving different things. There's kind of a point salad where there's a variety of different ways to gain points, which I really like, you know, it's not just one strategy that you have to go with.

Tilly:

I definitely liked that there's like different character abilities. So it started like literally every time you can play a different game, or it's like from something like Monopoly, it's like, you know, it is what it is. And that's how it's always going to be, you know,

Emma:

again, comparing it to something like Monopoly. I like the Zen feel of this game, because I'm someone who loves to play games, but isn't wholeheartedly competitive. So I love just being able to chill out, you can step away from the game if you need to. Or if you need to just take a mental break, come right back to it. You haven't missed too much. It doesn't get cutthroat competitive. And it's just a great game to play with a group of friends.

Rachel:

I agree with you. I'm like, I really like kind of those chill games. I'm also, I'm not super competitive. I do sometimes get upset when Jake wins for all the Forever games like well,

Emma:

because Jake wins all for all forever. And I never would ever never.

Rachel:

Sometimes I do get a little annoyed with that. But I honestly don't play Super competitively either. And I just really kind of enjoy the journey of playing the game. And in this you're enjoying the journey of walking across Japan and like kind of collecting these cool little things.

Emma:

Yeah, the aesthetic of the game is very nice. The ancient Japan theme. I really dig that. It's very cool.

Tilly:

It's definitely a very, like calming art style.

Rachel:

Okay, what are your guys's favorite ways of gaining points in this game?

Tilly:

Personally, I like I can't remember the character's name right off the top my head but it's the painter character where once you get to the end, you can also pick a panorama card. Because if you like you can play basically at two times speed with that, which is nice.

Rachel:

That is nice. And also just in general the panoramas are like a good way to get points. It's one of those things that I think I commonly underestimate. I'm always like, the panoramas are a waste of time I'll do something

Tilly:

I find I focus too much on the panoramas and miss out on all the other points about you, Emma. I am

Emma:

very different when it comes to board games. I just enjoy getting the bather achievement. I like visiting all the hot springs they got little monkeys and um little baboons and if you go to as many hotsprings as you can and therefore the most Almost out of all the other players, you get this achievement called bather, and I just like it.

Rachel:

Okay, Jake, what's your favorite way to get points in this game?

Jake:

My favorite way that I ideally would like to get points in this game is the gift shop. But I don't think I've ever gotten points from the gift shop.

Rachel:

You don't do it or somebody blocks you.

Jake:

Yes, I do really like the temple, because it's 10 additional points at the end, if you have the most of their plus, for every coin that you donate there, you get one victory point. And there is one character that I believe whenever you donate, you get two victory points for the first coin. Hmm. So that is one of my favorite ways to do I would like to go and collect all the stuff at the gift shops, but I just never seem to get that

Rachel:

it is definitely difficult. My favorite way to get points is to go to the gift shop.

Emma:

And this is why it's so difficult

Jake:

to be aware of this fact,

Rachel:

I'm always grabbing those spots blocking the gift shop. Yeah, that's my favorite way. Because I don't know what it is about games where like, you collect sets of things, because I do the same thing in five tribes where you're collecting the sets of cards from the market, but like I really liked that mechanic, I guess, and trying to collect all these different types of items. And so that is typically how I try to gain points. But I forget to do other things. Like, it's really important to kind of mix that up with other things because the panoramas, like that's free, all that costs you as a stop, right? Whereas the gift shop costs actual money. And that's money that takes away from being able to pay for meals later or, you know, being able to do some other stuff. So it requires a balance that I often forget. Yeah, I often visit the gift shop thinking it's a great idea and then realize that I have no coins to spend beginner's mistake,

Emma:

impulse control, impulse control poor.

Rachel:

All right. Do you guys have any fun stories from previous games that you had played together? Or with anyone else?

Emma:

No, I don't think so. I think they were pretty standard. The most fun was with you guys. To be honest.

Tilly:

The most fun was definitely having a coin bowl battle up in the top right.

Emma:

Oh, my goodness. I was

Rachel:

up there trying to read the rulebook. And you guys are putting these bowls of it. And I'm like, I'm trying to read like

Jake:

I was throwing the balls over the edge.

Rachel:

Well, they were getting stuck, like hovering over the rulebook and casting this shadow so that I couldn't

Jake:

read it. That's not what I was trying to do. I was just trying to throw him over the side. Okay.

Tilly:

I was just trying to throw chicks little hand thing on the screen.

Emma:

I was just watching. I was watching the chaos ensue. I could do nothing to stop it. You were helpless. I was completely helpless. I was an innocent bystander collecting my hotsprings victory points and getting that bather achievement Yeah, just just pay them.

Rachel:

And it was actually a pretty close game Jake one this one but we were all within like two points of each other. Yeah, I

Emma:

was surprised how close it was in the end. Yeah. worked out really well.

Rachel:

You guys did well, learning learning.

Emma:

We try for a while there. It seemed like we were way way behind to the point where Rachel said you guys, you know, you're supposed to move the little thing at the top to keep track of your points. So we said Yeah, yeah, we know. This is how many points we have.

Rachel:

We just really suck is what Emma said and I was like, Oh, I just mean to make you feel that way.

Emma:

But that being said the achievements at the end can really make a difference. panoramas you collect again, the gourmet bather, etc achievements, they really really do add up.

Rachel:

Yeah, because I think I only collected the one for having the most souvenirs and then Emma until we were playing on a team because they have they unfortunately are missing a second laptop. Yes. So Emma and Tilly playing on a team and then Jake like split the rest of the achievements pretty evenly between them I think.

Jake:

Yeah, I got three I think yeah, I really got one

Emma:

Jake only got three

Tilly:

Yeah, three out of the five the fact that you can just flip and flip and flip and flip and flip and flip and flip just continuously and watch the table and Tabletop Simulator just fly off into the distance. I do like flipping the table. It's just the best Yeah, I

Emma:

think we had just as much fun in Tabletop Simulator as we did playing the game.

Tilly:

Just cuz you can make a mess and you don't have to clean it up. Checkers would be fun on Tabletop Simulator and that's like a boring

Rachel:

game. Yeah, just load up the game that has like the most components and just flip the table and that's your pastor evening. Honestly,

Jake:

I am excited to talk about the expansions for this game. New encounters was the first expansion Note was released in 2012. This only adds four new encounters to the encounters deck, so it's not really a huge expansion. But the Crossroads expansion from 2013 adds new choices to each location. So at the hotsprings, you will now also have bathhouse cards, you can pay one coin to take a bathhouse cart, which is worth four victory points immediately, and then counts towards the hotsprings End of game bonus. Cherry Tree cards are available at all panorama locations instead of picking that panorama that you are at. So if you're at either the rice paddy, the ocean or the mountain, you can instead choose to pick a cherry tree card. And it is worth one coin immediately and two victory points immediately. The gambling den is something that you can do at the farm locations, you bet two coins and you roll this dice that is provided and you have the chance to either lose all your money, get your money back, get four coins, or get eight coins, depending on what you roll. And there are also amulets, amulets are available at the temple locations. There's a set pool of available amulets, and they will all have different effects. So So one of them, I believe, is you can use it and get gold immediately, or use it to get a panorama of your choice immediately. Once you use that it is returned to the pool of available amulets. So it is one time use. And it does cost one coin at the temple. So instead of choosing to donate, you can choose to purchase one of these legendary objects are available at the souvenir shop. These also have different effects, which will change the number of victory points that you get. So one of the effects is instead of acting as one of the types of souvenirs that you can get, it actually counts as a fifth in that set, adding an additional set of victory points. Yeah, next, we have calligraphy cards, these are cards that are available from when you land on the encounter spaces. Instead of choosing your encounter, you can choose to pay one coin to purchase the calligraphy card from the available pool. These are worth victory points. And they are also counted towards the end of game scoring objective. So that is the Crossroads expansion.

Rachel:

I like a lot of these options that they're adding, it's like, okay, you can go to the hotsprings. And you can get more victory points if you have the extra coins to spend. But if you don't like you can still just get the regular thing from the hotsprings for free. That's really cool. And like I like the legendary items from the souvenir shop. That's really cool.

Tilly:

I do too. I definitely like when there's like a very, I guess, in this case, like pool of items or powers that you can get. Because the more complex something is, I feel like the more strategy can go into it. And the more strategy you can put into it, the more fun you're gonna have. Yeah,

Emma:

yeah. And it sounds like this expansion in particular adds to the game without getting too confusing.

Tilly:

Yeah, there's a very fine line between complex and confusing. That's true.

Rachel:

And we'll get more into that in our rating section, complex and simplicity and difficulty and all that.

Jake:

The next expansion that is out currently is a 2016 expansion. It is called the matSuri expansion now and the matsuri is a festival or feast. So what this does, this adds new effects that happen when you visit the ends. So the first person to stop at the end draws two matsuri and gets to choose the effect. There are 17 different effects. So some of them are each shop has one less space available from now until the next in. That's one of the examples I saw. And if that shop only has one space on it, that shop is closed, you cannot go there. So it adds things that change between rounds, quote, unquote, I mean, this game doesn't exactly have rounds. But like I said earlier, those inns kind of split that up into rounds. But there are 17 different effects. I didn't want to go and list them all. If you're interested. Go look it up. That being said, there is one other expansion or add on I'm very excited about talking about there was a Felicia Day promo card. That is a character card that you can choose at the beginning of the game. It was only available at a German game convention in 2014. So unfortunately, they can't get it. But I love Felicia Day and she's in a lot of board games, actually.

Rachel:

Yeah, this is the second time we've seen a Felicia Day promo card.

Tilly:

She just become like the female geek queen of Earth,

Rachel:

I guess. No. I mean, I know that she's on Wil Wheaton tabletop show on YouTube. So yeah, she

Jake:

was also in the guild and wrote the guild. And it was incredible and it makes me cry. That was before I played WoW too. So like, that's saying something. I watched all of that before ever playing. Wow. Hmm. Okay. Wow. Wow.

Rachel:

Wow.

Jake:

Anyways, now we want to talk about the Board Game Geek ratings. So this game is actually rated only at a seven point O of 23,000 reviews. The board game rank overall is 632 of all games on Board Game Geek. So that's a pretty high rating overall, considering there are 10s or hundreds of 1000s of games on there. That being said, 7.0 doesn't feel super high for this game. I kind of anticipated the higher rating,

Rachel:

as did I know what would you guys give it out of 10?

Tilly:

I'd give it an EIGHT. I think I was gonna say as well. Yeah. Because it's a nice, like, fast paced game. Like he kind of just relaxed through it. Like it's not crazy mind bending.

Emma:

Yeah, I also gave it an EIGHT. I immediately wanted to play it again. That's like, you know, what I use as a basis for my writing.

Rachel:

That's a good system. I mean, I agree. It's, it is very quick. And I think that also goes into that like wanting to play it again, it doesn't take you two hours to get through it. Right? You have time to do that. Like, okay, you've got to your destination. Now let's play again, where you turn around and you go back the other way, right? Yeah, that's a good idea, too. I think it's probably a 7.0. Because it's a little bit on the lighter side weight wise, it does not have as much complexity to it as a lot of other games. And my theory is that the people who go on to BoardGameGeek, and rank these things are the type of people who are looking for more medium weight or heavyweight games. Yeah,

Jake:

so the Crossroads expansion is rated at 7.5 of 2300 reviews. And the matsuri is only been rated 839 times, but it is rated 7.4. So I feel like when you add them more complexity, you aren't getting a higher rating. All right,

Rachel:

I think it's time to go into our rating section. So the first rating that we have is easy versus difficult. That's basically like, How many times do you have to go back to the rulebook and look up something? How many times do you have to, you know, consult or clarify or something doesn't quite make sense to ask Emma and silly to go first, and give this a rating between one and 10. All righty,

Emma:

I gave it a six out of 10. I picked it up very quickly, which is saying a lot because I struggle with instructions and any kind of order. And it did take me a while to get to the point where I fully understood that I had to track other's movements and sort of plan ahead because I lacked any kind of foresight. And there was a few times where we had to consult the rules. And though they are easy to understand, we did have to go back to them a few times. So I had to knock off a few points there. So I gave it a five out of 10. I think although it is pretty straightforward. I think, like, say a kid under the age of 12 would kind of struggle with this. So took off points just like nitpicky there, five out of 10. Overall,

Tilly:

that's fair. I think I'll give it a four. The base concept is very linear, like you just move to the place you do the action. And you get the points in that so that we didn't have to look the rules a couple of times while we were playing all four of us together. But I feel like like with any game with instructions, like if we played it 100 times, we would have it memorized, you know, so I feel like they're not complex rules. But there are definitely rules where like, You got to kind of remind yourself so before,

Rachel:

I think the thing that is most difficult is just figuring out what some of the symbols represent. Yes, that was mostly what we had to go back to the rulebook and look up is like, oh, you know, I got this encounter card, and it doesn't have any words on it, it's just the entire interaction, or the entire effect is described in symbols. And if it's not completely clear from the beginning, then you have to go into the rulebook and find that and see what that actually is supposed to do. I'm going to agree with Tilly, I think and give it a four.

Jake:

I was gonna give it a three. Before everyone said it was higher than that. Three, I was gonna give the three because I've only played this game one other time, months ago. And I remember pretty much how to play the game. There are a couple of things like the symbols that you need to look up. But even that it can be sort of intuitive. So like your card, Rachel starting character had the symbol of two encounters with a question mark between them. And just looking at that, as I said, Oh, that's you get to draw two and keep one and discard the other. And we went looked it up and that's what that meant.

Rachel:

See, I found that the question mark was confusing, like I feel like there are other more common ways To depict, like, draw to pick one. And I don't know, like a slash would have been used to like represent or this or that. I don't know, I feel like there was a better way to depict that.

Jake:

I don't know. I thought it was sort of intuitive. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

Rachel:

Apparently you're on the same wavelength as the people who made the rules. So it's all good.

Jake:

Antoine Bauza and I are on the same page.

Tilly:

Would you happen to be Japanese? Jake? No, I am not at all. There it goes my theory.

Jake:

I wish.

Rachel:

All right. Next is simple versus complex. This is basically what kind of strategies do you have available to you in this game, a more complex game has more strategies. If this is confusing at all, in comparison to easy versus difficult, we'd like to use the example of chess, chess is an easy to learn game, because there's only so many pieces, and each piece has its specific move that it does. But it's an incredibly complex game, because there is a huge variety of strategy that you can bring to it. And so what do you guys think this is a 10 would be like the most complex game that you have ever

Tilly:

experienced. I feel like I'm gonna go with a six on this. Because although there are different strategies that you can use, and like I said, there's the different characters that have different abilities. So it's different right off the bat, like you start each game with a different strategy in mind, as is. But then as the game progresses, it changes because other people take some of the like bonus things, so you kind of have to readjust. So it's not extremely complex, but it's complex enough that you do have to pay attention. So I'll give it a solid six,

Emma:

I would like to second to that. I will also give it a six out of 10 for all the same reasons you just listed. And I found it to be deceivingly. Strategic, like for such a simple game, I mean, comparing it to chess is not far off. I mean, on the base level, you're just going across this track. However, there's things like the different players involved. There's things like what you're trying to accomplish, there's a lot of different strategies you can pick and choose from. And some of them pay off highly other ones are the bather achievements, which are just fun. Yeah,

Rachel:

I think I'm gonna give this a four on the strategy. Just because after doing this for a while, we've played many games, and you start to kind of compare the complexity of this game to the next game. And we have played far more complex games. And so a 10, for us would be something that is, you know, probably something that you guys wouldn't be interested in, or, you know, like, yes, so just kind of based on my experiences with other games, where this falls is a four. But I think it's really good that we have you guys on here as kind of like new baby gamers.

Emma:

We are baby gamers for sure.

Rachel:

Like, it's really good for new listeners, and like people who are just getting into board games to hear what this is, from your perspective, rather than from the perspective of more experienced gamers.

Tilly:

May I ask what the most complex game you guys have played is dominant species.

Rachel:

It could be dominant species. This is a game where you are playing like these various types of animals in like at the beginning of an ice age. So like you can be spiders or snakes or birds, or like you're playing a species of animals and you're attempting to survive the Ice Age basically by migrating and doing all kinds of other things. And there's just a lot a lot going on and a lot to keep track of. But I'm not convinced that's the most complex

Jake:

I think the most according to board game geeks weight system is spirit Island. Dominant Species is weighted at a 4.0 for Spirit Island is weighted at a 4.05

Rachel:

Okay, spirit Island is a game that we will definitely one day do an episode on.

Jake:

I'm not kidding doesn't even feel that. Well, it's complex. But I feel like dominant species is worse because dominance per case, I'm gonna digress here real quick. Dominant Species is a competitive game where you're fighting against each other to win spirit island you are working together. That being said, the more people you have in spirit Island, the harder it gets, not only does the game get harder, but now you have three different people to juggle abilities between.

Rachel:

I can't imagine playing that game with four players like it would be impossible. Well, because we're sitting here trying to optimize our turns. Well, I can do this And you can do that. And we're like trying to figure out how we can protect this island together. And it's difficult playing with Jake, because he's talking about what he's going to do three turns from now. And I'm like, no. What are we doing now? Right now?

Jake:

Now, it doesn't matter anymore.

Emma:

Yeah, I'll just bet I figured it out. I've already figured.

Rachel:

But anyway, Jake, you have to give this game Tokaido rating on simple versus complex,

Jake:

I think I would land this smack dab in the middle of five. Okay, because there's definite strategy involved into when you get to the inn, like when you want to get there first, and when you don't want to get there first. And what you are doing in between those ends. And I think, especially if you had the Matsuri expansion, that would change things drastically. Okay.

Rachel:

Lastly, we have rote versus random. So this is just how random is the game are there you know, a lot of elements like cards and dice and things that really just make the game super random. And that would be a 10 verses, you know, rote is like, if you had a one on this scale, it would be the same exact game every time you played.

Tilly:

I feel like I was gonna say four, but I think three, so you don't feel like it's very random. Not supremely No, I think, like, it's definitely random in the sense, like, your opponents are always going to do something different every time. But like, the only really random part is the character that you get at the beginning, which sort of dictates how you're going to play the rest of the game. So I feel like there is opportunity for randomness and differences, sort of right off the bat, but like, the bulk of the game remains fairly similar.

Emma:

I feel like it is the opposite. Like the bulk of the game is random. But there are a few components that remain the same, such as the track you're following, it's the same every time, you can add other elements that change it up, you can add expansions, but for the most part, it's the same. And what's different is yes, the characters that you can choose from the beginning. Also, there's randomization in the cards, you don't know what kind of cards you're gonna get, particularly at the bathhouse, you can get one or two victory points, you don't know which ones you're gonna get, when you go to the merchants, the stores, you don't know what items you're gonna get, when you go to the ends, you don't know what kind of food you're gonna get. So I find that there is a little more randomization, I gave it a five, I know it's not much higher than Tilly. But I did have to add a few points just for those elements.

Rachel:

I agree with you, I'm going to put it right smack dab in the middle of five, because of exactly what you said, like there's a lot of cards that are randomized, and that affects your ability to, you know, for example, with the souvenirs, that completely affects your ability to gain the sets, right, you may get terribly unlucky. And just keep getting the same two types of souvenirs and never see the other ones for some reason, that's a possibility. Same thing with like the meals, you could get really unlucky and get stuck with meals that you've already had, and are unable to purchase what's remaining at the end. Although that goes back to strategy a little bit, you know, you might want to be the first one to get to the end so that you have that first choice. But you know, all of that is, is still randomized. So I agree, I'm putting it at a five,

Jake:

I am going to put it at probably three, because the number of cards is kind of limited. Your track never changes unless you take one of those variants and change it yourself. I don't feel like there's a whole lot of randomized elements to this game, other than the cards that you're drawing, because Rachel and I have had this argument before I wanted to, but per Rachel, you are not allowed to consider another player's actions as random.

Emma:

Yes, I heard that episode and kept that in mind. And purposely did not say anything about the strategy adding to the randomization.

Tilly:

I think it's a three.

Rachel:

Okay, what if we allowed other players actions to be considered random you would get? They would be a five.

Tilly:

I would say that would make it like a six

Emma:

six for you six for me, too. But we're playing by the rules here.

Rachel:

Maybe we need to open this up to our listeners at some point and see what they think since Jake keeps bringing it up as like some hard fast rule that I set that makes no sense at all.

Tilly:

I feel like simply in the in the way you guys do this ranking like the easy versus difficult and the simple versus complex and then wrote versus random. I feel like strategy is more involved in the complexity rather than the randomness

Rachel:

Absolutely, that's where strategy is meant to be in the simple versus complex. And so yeah, that's where we're talking about players actions. Absolutely. I agree.

Tilly:

Random would be like the functions of the game itself, regardless of what the players are doing. Yes. Also, that is hilarious.

Emma:

It's a slight technicality, I suppose.

Jake:

All right, Emma and Tilly, now's the time to answer the question. Would you rather play Tokaido over having your laptop commit un alive before trying to record this episode, as well as having a bunch of other technical issues?

Emma:

A million times Yes. Yeah. I

Tilly:

feel like it's pretty safe to say yeah.

Rachel:

Yes, it is a very fun day. Especially if we can do it on Tabletop Simulator and flip

Tilly:

tables. I can flick some some pieces, I'm happy

Emma:

that even more so yes.

Rachel:

I do want to say like, I'm hard on Tabletop Simulator, because Jake drives me crazy with it. But it is a fantastic way to play board games with people that are not local to you. So if you are brand new to board games, and you don't know what this is, go check it out. It's like $20 on steam at full price. And it's very often on sale. And so you go on there. And then you get access to all of these little workshop add ons that you can add for free. A lot of the games are scripted. So you don't need to do as much work in like the setup, quote, unquote. It's a great way to play games with people who are not local, and Emma and Tilly are not even in the same country as us. But we're able to play board games together. Yes, we are from the great white north eh yeah, this episode may not have been possible without board game simulator. So we do Oh, it's a lot.

Tilly:

I've heard of the tabletop simulator. And I'd also like seen it, like in video, but actually like navigating it using the keyboard, mouse and all that it was it was pretty user friendly, I would say. Agreed.

Rachel:

Well, I'm glad you guys had a good time with it. All right. So there you have it. That is Tokaido. Thank you everybody so much for listening. As always, you can hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at so bored podcast. That's S O Bo, AR D we'd love to hear from you any house rules that you have or fun experiences that you have playing this game. You'll also be able to find pictures and short stories of other things that we've been playing and doing recently. If you don't feel like doing it on social media, you can always email us at We are so bored@gmail.com That's w e a r e s o b o ar e@gmail.com. And make sure that you hit subscribe so that you get notified when new episodes come out. You can leave us a review as well, that helps us grow that helps us do things like lots of fun giveaways, which we are just getting done with right now.

Tilly:

So yeah,

Rachel:

let's keep this going. I want to thank Emma and Tilly again, as well for joining guys. Feel free to go ahead and plug your show and tell us all about it again,

Emma:

for sure. It was an absolute pleasure being on the show. If you like what you hear from us, you can find us at the Geek Squared show wherever you get your podcasts. We also have Instagram, it's again, the Geek Squared show. That's all spelled out no numbers, you give us a follow for behind the scenes content, and just more of us if you want to chill with us and get to know us a little bit more. You can also follow me on Tik Tok at the square root of geek for behind the scenes of the behind the scenes footage.

Rachel:

All right, yeah. Thank you. Yeah,

Tilly:

thank you.

Jake:

We also want to thank a&t podcast management for editing this episode. They are professional podcast editors and can be found at a n t hyphen, podcast management.com. We also want to thank Mitchell Mims, the designer of our art. He is currently accepting commissions so go check him out at m i s c. O S Ara on Instagram or on his website, Mitchell Mims. That's mi ch e l m i m s dot c AR ar d.co. We are once again streaming every Wednesday evening on Twitch. We start anywhere between 530 and seven Pacific time. And we go for about two or three hours usually. But we stream all sorts of board games on there. You can find that at twitch.tv/snowboard podcast. And I'm also on Twitch. I'm going to be streaming a bunch of retro games soon at twitch.tv/nau. ght UI D o c 541.

Rachel:

Right. And once again, make sure you go and listen to the most recent episode of The Geek squares show where we are debating who is the best Batman. It's fun. It's good. It's a good time.

Tilly:

Yes, spoiler alert. We talked about the nipples.

Emma:

Oh no. The Bat nipple I can't talk about that again.

Rachel:

Thanks, everybody for listening and we'll see you next time.

Emma:

i Bye bye