Arrange a Town, Fulfill Drink Orders, and Tidy the House Before Guests Arrive

Arrange a Town, Fulfill Drink Orders, and Tidy the House Before Guests Arrive
Board Game: Five Three Five
Tokyo Game Market takes place on April 23-24, 2022, so I thought I'd highlight a few games from Japanese designers and publishers, games that may be available at that show — or available in the future through other means, as will be the case for the card game 535 from designer かぶきけんいち (Kenichi Kabuki) and publisher Game Nowa.

I wrote about this title in December 2020, and U.S. publisher Portland Game Collective has picked up the design for release in Q4 2022 under the name Five Three Five and with a player count of 2-5 instead of 2-6, a change approved by Kabuki. Adds PGC's Lee Gianou, "The game will now feature helpful reference cards, which were something missing from the original."

If you're not familiar with the design, here's that overview once again:
Quote:
535 is a climbing game that uses a deck of cards 1-15, but with no cards of rank 6 or 10. The deck contains multiple copies of each card, and in addition to a rank, each card has a point value.

On a turn, you can play a higher group of card(s), add to the current group of card(s), or pass. Eligible plays are single cards, sets of the same numbers, and sequences of consecutive cards. For an addition play example, if the current stack shows 2-3-4, the active player could play a 1 and 5 card from their hand to extend the current play to a sequence of 1 through 5.

Certain patterns, such as four cards of the same number, end the current run, then a new round begins. Once one player is out of cards, the other players score negative points based upon the cards left in their hands. The game ends once one player has lost 20 or more points, then the player(s) with the most points wins.
Board Game: Five Three Five
The cards remain the same in the PGC version

• At Game Market, designer Saashi of Saashi & Saashi will debut a new card game called Before the Guests Arrive, which gamifies a normal household activity. Here's a short description:
Quote:
Today we're having a party! But everyone's stuff is littered around the house, so before the guests arrive, we have to straighten up this place. Grandma and Grandpa will pitch in, too, but the guests might show up at any time. Try to quickly tidy up more stuff than anyone else. Can each family member finish straightening up, and get ready to receive the guests with out any mishaps?

Board Game: Before the Guests Arrive

In Before the Guests Arrive, you do your best to tidy up a messy house for a party. To set up the game, shuffle the guests card into a small pack of cards and place it on the bottom of the deck. Lay out 10-13 cards in an interlocking series of rows and columns. On a turn, choose a row or column, and take all cards in it, adding them to your collection; if at most three cards are in the display, first refill the display, then choose a row or column.

After taking cards, you can tidy up with one member of the family. The Mom, Dad, Girl, and Boy can each tidy up two types of stuff at a time, whereas Baby, Grandma, and Grandpa can each tidy up only one type. Stuff comes in five colors, and each color has three types of stuff, e.g., baby stuff (yellow) has blocks, bears, and lollipops. Yellow stuff can be tidied only by Baby, Grandma, and Grandpa, whereas red stuff can be tidied only by the Girl or Grandma. When tidying up a type of stuff, you can tidy as much of that type of stuff (i.e., stuff with the same illustration) as you like, so it's useful to get a bunch of the same stuff and tidy it all up together.

When refilling the house, if the guest card appears, then the game ends, with everyone having one final chance to tidy up or discard a single card. Players then score points for the stars on what they've tidied, then lose points for stuff not tidied and family members not used. Whoever scores the most wins!
Board Game: Town 66
Oink Games plans to have four new items at Game Market, although I will qualify "new" for two of these items as explained below.

One of the new games is Town 66 from Anja Wrede and Christoph Cantzler, with this being a puzzle-style game for 1-4 players. An overview:
Quote:
The residents of Town 66 can't stand it when houses with the same shape or color are lined up with each other. Try to build as many houses as you can while keeping in mind which houses in your hand can be built at the end.

In Town 66, each player has a hand of tiles, with each tile showing one of six house styles in one of six colors/patterns. (The color/pattern of a tile also shows on its reverse side.) The game has 36 tiles in total, one of each possible combination.

Board Game: Town 66

The first player places a tile in the upper-left corner of an imaginary 6x6 square, then on each subsequent turn a player adds a tile to a row or column in this square so long as this tile is adjacent to at least one other tile and the color/house style isn't already present in this row and column. After playing a tile, a player can choose to draw anew tile or not. If you play your final tile, you win, but if you don't draw new tiles, you might find yourself unable to play!
Board Game: Order Overload: Cafe
• Oink's other new game is Order Overload: Cafe from the company's own Jun Sasaki, with 2-6 players working in a coffee shop. Here's a summary of game play:
Quote:
To keep your jobs, you need to keep a handle on all the orders coming in. Will you be able to make the right drinks?

In a round, you deal a certain number of cards face up and read them aloud so that everyone knows all the orders placed, then you deal these cards out face down to the players. On a turn, you need to name an order that's in someone else's hand. Fail to do so, and you're eliminated from play! If you collectively reveal a set number of drinks before everyone is eliminated, then you clear the level and are ready to take on tougher challenges...

Board Game: Order Overload: Cafe

What's the highest level you can clear?
• The other two new-not-new items from Oink Games are a 12th anniversary set of playing cards, with each card depicting a different Oink release—

From gallery of W Eric Martin

—and Can Keeper: Kankeri, which is apparently Oink's attempt to keep a traditional version of "Kick the Can" alive, a version in which the "parent" must protect the can from a "demon". Kudos for a looping teaser video that ends where it begins:

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