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That pattern continued in 2016, which is when I discovered the huge shopping district in the Tokyo ward of Shibuya, a place where you can find every species and re-imagining of Pikachu possible and a place that includes one of the most famous intersections in the world: Shibuya Crossing, which is one of Time magazine's suggested ten things to do in Tokyo. I never would have thought of an intersection as a tourist destination, but to a large degree that's what Times Square is, so the joke's on me for not realizing that sooner.
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As it turns out, visiting Shibuya Crossing is indeed an event, despite it being pedestrian by definition. The crossing is a huge empty stretch of roadway where multiple streets meet, and every few minutes all the streetlights turn red, and hundreds of people swarm across the multiple intersections in all directions. The feeling is one of a concert being letting out, except that multiple concert halls are exiting all at once, and the group that you're part of is crashing against multiple other groups, with everyone trying to go their own way amidst the lights and tall buildings surrounding you.
In the spirit in which many other Japanese games are produced — that is, taking absolutely any life event that you can imagine and gamifying it — designer Yusuke Sato has transformed the Shibuya experience into a board game, with that game having debuted at Game Market from publisher New Board Game Party in 2017. Distributor/agent Japon Brand now plans to release SHIBUYA at SPIEL '18, which means that those who want to experience the feeling of crossing a street without leaving their chair can now do so more readily.
SHIBUYA is primarily a two-player game, although four-player rules exist, and in this tile-laying game, you'll first construct the street from the 2x2 tiles, then you'll take turns either moving one of your pedestrians or placing a new tile on an empty one. To move, you choose one of the four elements of the board — black, white, square, circle — then move one of your pedestrians as far as you like along that element as long as you don't encounter someone else. If you place a pedestrian in the back row, then it hops onto the curb and the first player to get six pedestrians across the street — or three more than the other player — wins immediately.
For those who want to see it in action, here's an overview that also covers the four-player rules and details the feelings created by the game:
And why would you want to cross the street anyway? Because it's there? You're no chicken, so surely you need more of a reason than that. I would suggest searching out a cat café while there and spending some time getting to know a few furred friends. Free drink included with your first half-hour!
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