New Game Round-up: Travel to Tokyo to Pick Up Passengers, Collect Cats, and Fight With Dominoes

At the start of the game, each player shuffles their colored domino army tiles face down, then draws a hand of five tiles, keeping them behind their screen. On a turn, each player reveals one domino, with the strength of a domino equalling the summed numbers on it. Whoever played the weakest domino places it into the region first, then the player of the next weakest domino places that, etc. In the case of a tie, the tied dominos are placed after all other dominoes that turn.

The region under question is a 5x5 space on the playing area, with the central square being occupied by a castle. No domino can be placed over the castle. The first domino placed in a region must be placed adjacent to a castle, and each subsequent domino placed can be placed adjacent to the castle or next to any other domino as long as they have the same number in at least one adjacent edge. For example, a 2|5 tile could be placed next to a 4|5 tile, or the tiles could be placed perpendicular to one another as long as the 5s are adjacent.

Once all the dominoes are placed, the next turn begins with players refilling their hands, then playing another domino. A player cannot play outside the 5x5 area unless it's impossible to play all of the domino inside it.

Once the region is filled, you consider the total strength of each player in each row and column in the region, using colored markers to indicate who has the highest total. If two colors are tied for highest, then they're ignored and the next highest color wins the row or column. If the totals are completely tied, then no one wins that row or column. Whoever wins the most rows and columns wins the region, placing a marker of their color on the castle. Again, in the case of a tie, they're ignored and the next highest color wins the region!

Whoever first wins two regions wins the game. If in a four-player game each player wins one region, then the tie is broken by whoever won the most rows and columns.

In this memory game, you start the game by playing out the cards face down on the table. The deck consists of black, green, and gray cats (six each), blue and red cats (three each), golden cats (four), and eight music notes.

On a turn, you reveal a card, then stop and collect that card or reveal another card. If you reveal a type of card that's already been shown, then your turn ends, you collect nothing, and all revealed cards are laid face-down again. If you stop before this, you collect the revealed cards except for a revealed note card, which is turned face down again. If you collect a blue and red cat, thereby reuniting the lovecats, you score 2 points; if you collect a pair of matching cats, you score 1 point. Golden cats are wild and can be paired with any color. You cannot use the same blue cat to score for both lovecats and a pair.

The first player to score 8 points wins. You can do this solely by collecting cats, but another possibility is to start your turn by saying "Note atsume" ("Collecting notes), then reveal only note cards — which are worth 1 point each — until you have a total of 8 points between cats and notes, thereby winning the game; if you flip anything other than a music note, your turn ends and you must hide those cards once again.

The game includes a large shared map board, along with five individual player boards. All players draw their routes on the shared board, while taking note of their passengers, sights, and other elements on their individual boards.

To start a round, you reveal a colored bus route at random from the deck. Each player's board has a different combination of colors and required moves, so blue on one board might be go straight one block, while someone else goes two blocks and a third player must make a turn. Players make their moves in turn on the shared map board, then mark the icons of what they've seen at various intersections on their player board. Different types of riders all score differently, and placing checks on your personal board for passengers and areas (sight-seeing spots, stations, universities) before other players do can earn you extra bonus points, so strategically planning your route while keeping in mind your main destinations is very important. Sharing the road with someone else causes traffic, which might lead to penalties. Meet the conditions on public demand cards to score bonus points!

DICE WIDE SHUT is a roll-and-write game that includes erasable markers and game boards. Try to fill the columns with checkmarks to score without bursting any rows!

In this game for 2-5 players, you'll use 3-6 red dice and 3-6 blue dice along with a single purple die no matter the player count. Each player has their own erasable game board with a red grid of dice faces at the top of it (with the red faces reading 1-5 as you go across a row) and a blue grid of dice faces at the bottom (with the blue faces reading 1-5 as you go down a column). On the right-hand side of each grid is a column of 6s; the 6s are grayed out and not considered to be part of the red or blue grid.

To start a round, one player rolls the dice. The starting player then chooses either red or blue, then chooses two dice numbered 1-5 or a single die numbered six in the named color. The purple die can be picked up whether you choose red or blue. After you take the die or dice, you check off empty die faces in that half of your player board that match the numbers taken. One exception: When you take a 6, you can check off a 6 in either the top or bottom of your board.

If you create a row of five horizontal checkmarks in the red or blue grid, then you must place a line through all of these checked die faces. Boom! Bad news! If, however, you have a checked 6 in that same row, you can choose to cross out the checkmark instead of placing the final check in the row and blowing it up.

Once all the dice have been claimed, then the next player in clockwise order from the starting player becomes the new starting player and begins a new round. As soon as one player has three filled columns in either the red or the blue grid, each other player takes one final turn (assuming enough dice remain), then the game ends. Players then score points for each column depending on the number of continuous check marks in that column; three separate checkmarks in a column in the red grid is worth 3 points (1 point for each check) while three continuous checkmarks is worth 6 points. An empty space or a crossed-out line breaks the continuity. Whoever has the highest total wins.