Tsuro Of The Seas

Things are just getting started

A few months back I was persuaded to have a clear out of some of my old gaming material in preparation for moving house. With a heavy heart I handed some old 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons references books and adventures to my mate Malcolm, who worked in a local independent game store. These items went into the second hand boxes for people to browse through. They proved more desirable than anticipated, and a few weeks back I found that I had some in-store credit to spend.

I was keen to find a game that I, my wife and 10-year-old daughter could play together. I am hoping that in a few years, daughter will be up for trying a Role Playing Game, but for now a good board game was the target. I interrogated Malcolm, and with his help we selected ‘Tsuro of the Seas’ (TotS) from the shop’s wares. This is apparently a sequel to ‘Tsuro’, and I found out later that TotS was funded through Kickstarter.

Malcolm’s recommendation was spot on. The Allsop game night is a regular occurrence again, mostly driven by TotS.

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa - Hokusai

For me, opening a new game is one of life’s pleasures, and TotS is absolutely lovely. The art is inspired by ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’ by Hokusai and the whole game has a Japanese theme. The ships are junks and you have to avoid monsters called DaiKaiJu. The box alone looks good on the shelf. The DaiKaiJu themselves would make respectable tattoos, and there’s even a lovely cover sheet designed to look as if it’s printed on rice paper. All this magnificence comes at a cost of course, and it isn’t a cheap game. You wouldn’t let your kids play it with jam covered fingers. Having said that the board and counters are of a good thick quality, so I think it will prove durable.

Hard a port! No PORT!

So it looks good, but how does it play. Well the first word that comes to mind is ‘quickly’.  All of our games have been finished in less than 20 minutes, usually with another round immediately following. The rules are nice and clear, and I had it ready to go in no time. I refuse to allow anyone else first go at the rule book, so it’s always me teaching a new game to everybody else. Everyone picked it up quickly. The aim of TotS is to be the last one left alive. You start at the edge of the board with three square wake tiles in your hand. You choose and place one, each of which has two entry and exit points on each side joined by wakes. All tiles are different, so depending on the tiles in your hand you could go straight ahead, left, right or even double back on yourself.

At the start of the game you can go pretty much anywhere you want and staying alive isn’t a problem. However you very soon have to start avoiding the DaiKaiJu, which are randomly placed on the board and wander slowly about. Once you’ve placed a wake tile it can only be removed by a DaiKaiJu, so the board soon fills up. If you get cornered and are forced to enter an existing wake, then you have to follow it wherever it leads. This could be off the edge of the board or straight into a monster. It’s a simple game but everyone soon ends up staring at their tiles, trying to figure out how to stave off death for one more round. If you can manoeuvre the loved one besides you into sealing their doom at the same time, then so much the better.

Tsuro of the Seas is a game that looks great, plays well and will not be left to gather dust. Not cheap, but worth the price. Go and buy it.