Many people have many opinions about themes of board games. Some will swear off a game completely because the theme just doesn’t click with them even though the rules are great, some will flock to a game just because they love the theme and overlook any shortcomings the rules may have. Personally I like to believe that I am above this, but that’s probably a lie. We like to believe ourselves to be above being biased or petty with our games particularly in the selection of theme, yet I’m sure we at some point muttered “Oh great another Cthulhu mythos game…”
That all being said I have always enjoyed collecting games with not just strange mechanics but also strange themes. There’s something fun about being able to just bring out a game that is decent that just about no one has heard of and that’s what I have for you today. This is a game about rocks, but not just any rocks, specifically arranged rocks for the purpose of Zen Rock Gardening, which leads to the name of the game Karesansui. In this game three to six people will be competing in the antithesis of a zen game as they attempt to arrange arrange rocks of varying colours and numbers in an attempt to get zen. What is the penalty for not being zen? Points of course and points are bad. The bad part is you have to take on more rocks each turn, which in turn means you can become not zen, in fact the only way to not take on more rocks is to pass, which only one player is around to do each round. If you do that you get a lovely point and a random rock as your compensation, so even passing becomes a dangerous and potentially losing proposition at some point.
I do seem to be getting ahead of myself, remember how I said there is a strange mechanic in this game in addition to the strange theme? Well the strange mechanic we get to enjoy is AUCTIONS. There you are again saying that auctions have always existed, but these are decreasing auctions. Thematically this is represented by the idea that you are bidding on rocks with other rocks and someone has to haul away the rocks. The rock sellers are quite lazy and would rather take the smallest amount of rocks back so the winning bid is the smallest bid on a lot of rocks. Where smallest is defined as rocks adding up numerically to the smallest number, or when tied having the fewest number of rocks. In the context of the game that means, each turn you will most likely have more rocks than you started with. More rocks leads to more likelihood to not be zen, which leads to points, and remember, points are bad.
We have yet to reach the icing on this cake of rock. You know what would really throw a wrench in all your zen graced rock gardening, if you weren’t even sure when the game would end. Well you kind of know, the game goes between 5 and 10 rounds. After the 5th round a black rock (no not the helicopter) gets put into the bag and if it ever comes out for auction or as part of the extra rock that the passing player is “gifted”, the game ends at the end of the corresponding phase. That means you have to take some pretty big gambles, “yea sure Becky, my board looks horrible now but the game is hopefully going to end so the fact that you are taking 3 points this turn and I’m not will make me win. Unless the game doesn’t end, in which case I am so boned next turn.” Is effectively the conversation that happens at the end of each of round 5-10.
This does bring in the games first and probably biggest weakness, the player count. Remember how I said 3-6 above? Well at 6 the game always ends after round 5, there are usually only 3-5 rocks left over in the bag after the auctions are set up at 6 players so it is with pretty high confidence that you will pull that black rock in round 5 and if not then, in round 6. At 3 players you get the opposite problem, there are just so many rocks in the bag and you are pulling so few (about 4-10 per round) that it is most likely that you will never draw the black rock so most of your games go the full 10 rounds. So our 3-6 player game has now been quietly reduced to a 4-5 player game where you truly get to see all the mechanics shine in the way that the designer most likely intended it, which is fine considering how many games have optimal player counts that differ from the listed player counts.
If you want a bit more player interaction there is also a mini expansion that was included in the base game. This gives you weeds, which if you win in the auction you can put on someone else’s board to potentially give them negative points in future rounds. You can get rid of the weeds by either passing (which remember, gives you points), or by covering it with a stone, which may also end up giving you points. I don’t have much experience with this expansion so I won’t exposit much on whether it makes the game better or worse, just note that it definitely adds more targeted attacking to the game, which while present in the base game dials that aspect up to 11.
So to lay out all the stones, I really do enjoy this game. It is fun, and aggravating to play it. You always have to make a decision between hurting yourself now and hurting yourself a little later. Sometimes its even better to take the early hit in points just so that someone else takes the larger amount of points. It is a little strange and takes people some time to get used to when they first play but most people who I have showed this to came out of it thinking it was a neat game and concept. It isn’t going to be anyone’s favourite game but I think it deserves to be in my standard rotation. After all, sometimes you just want to rock.