Expecting a few new players to Board Game night? Try running them though Takenoko, a gateway game full of fun and panda-monium!
A long time ago at the Japanese Imperial court, the Chinese Emperor offered a giant panda bear as a symbol of peace to the Japanese Emperor. Since then, the Japanese Emperor has entrusted his court members with the difficult task of caring for the animal by tending to his bamboo garden.
So today I’m gonna do a review of an older game. Takenoko is one of my favorite gateway games. Gateway games are those that I break out when newer players are expected to attend game-night. Takenoko is a 2-4 player set collection, objective scoring game that takes around 45 minutes to play. It was designed by Antoine Bauza, published by Bombyx and Matagot, and distributed by Asmodee.
Takenoko $39.99
Long, long ago, the Emperor of China offered the Emperor of Japan a Giant Panda in a gesture of peace. You have been appointed to the delicate task of caring for this politically-important Panda and tending to the Emperor’s illustrious bamboo garden. You must cultivate plots of land using irrigation and intelligence so that bamboo, the only food that the Panda will eat, grows in abundance. But beware of the sacred animal’s uncontrollable appetite for crunchy young sprouts…
The most obvious characteristic of Takenoko is the adorable artwork and panda miniature. That feature alone will draw in newer players. The lightweight complexity is also a very good feature. Veteran players will also enjoy the easy nature and puzzle solving aspects of this game.
In Takenoko, you play as a gardener trying to grow a bamboo garden and please the emperor with the layout. The entire time, a cuddly panda is running around eating all the bamboo that the gardener is trying to make grow.
You can score points in several ways. You can have the panda move to different hexes and eat certain types of bamboo to fulfill the color requirement on the scorecard, rarer bamboo will score higher. The second method of scoring is by the gardener growing the garden in certain heights and colors. The final way to score is arranging the garden in a certain pattern to please the Emperor. You also will roll the weather die and, depending on your roll, each weather symbol will produce a different action bonus for your turn. You can also irrigate tiles to bring water from the central pond in order to help bamboo grow.
Each player takes two actions in turn until someone scores the number of cards required by the player count to get a visit from the Emperor himself. The player with the most points will become the winner.
For those wanting to add more options and gameplay, there is a Chibis expansion. This adds a female panda and several new garden tiles as well as new scorecards. One of the new mechanics is when you move the female into the same tile as the male panda they have babies. When you do this you can get a chibi token which grants a game bonus and points. If you enjoy the original game, this expansion will add a little more depth and fun to the base version. It is definitely a worthwhile expansion to get as it doesn’t drastically change much of the original game rules.
There is also a gigantic collector’s edition with all the components in giant size even the panda is huge! Retail for this version is roughly $150, however, you may have to go on the secondary market which can be much more expensive. They have also supersized the chibis expansion as well. Takenoko has a special place in my collection as it is one of my first modern board game purchases and it is made by my absolute favorite game designer.
If you are looking for a fun, fast easy-to-learn game for your family, this one is absolutely perfect to fill that place in your collection.
