Japanese Game Round-up: Two from OKAZU, A Menu from a Board Game Café, and Animalistic Trick-Taking for Two

In Kanban Menu, each player, as owner of a small café, tries to develop their specialty to establish the best café in town. Use material cards to make your specialties and gain good reputations (in the form of victory points, a.k.a. VPs). The player with the most VP at the end of the game wins.

In the short summer of the Southern Alps, animals live in a corral. In Peter's Two Sheep Dogs, players act as two sheep dogs, calling the animals with a loud voice and chasing off the wolf. Compete to be Peter's best sheep dog by herding the animals from the grassland, into the fence, and finally to the hut.

The player aims to become a sheep dog and collect many animals into their navery. Three livestock animals — sheep, pig, cow — score points, while the wolf eats the livestock and eliminates points. As a result, players balance moving the wolves to threaten the opponent while also gathering livestock for themselves.

However, because both trick-taking and mancala rules are mixed together, it will not be easy. Basically winning a trick allows players to collect animals in their grasslands. The player who loses the trick picks one of their grasslands and performs the movement action. If you can chase animals perfectly toward your or your opponent's goal fence, you can gain additional action opportunities and an even better score.

During the game you have opportunities for scorings in spring and summer, and if the score obtained in summer is lower than the score obtained in spring, the summer score becomes 0 points. However, if the score obtained in summer is more than twice the score of spring, your spring score is doubled.