Tokyo Game Market 2020 Autumn: Report from Table Games in the World

Editor's note: Game Market took place in Tokyo on November 14-15, 2020, and Saigo — who translates game rules between Japanese and English and who tweets about new JP games — has translated reports about this event (day one and day two) that were written by Takuya Ono, who runs the Table Games in the World blog. Mr. Ono has given permission to reprint the photos from his post. Many thanks to Saigo! —WEM

On a warm autumnal day, with the temperature reaching as high as 20º Celsius as if it were still October, the first day of Tokyo Game Market 2020 Autumn took place at Tokyo Big Sight Aumi Exhibition Hall. This first Game Market after an interval of one year was held with strict infection control measures in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.

Hall A with the block booths of various companies was fairly deserted due to the admission restrictions

Due to the spread of the new coronavirus, Osaka Game Market 2020 and Tokyo Game Market 2020 Spring, formerly scheduled to be held in March and April, had been cancelled one after another, so this was the first Game Market to take place after Tokyo Game Market 2019 Autumn. While that show had 29,300 visitors, as an infection prevention measure the number was limited this year by introducing admission time slots and corresponding advance admission ticket sales.

As the reported number of infection cases per day kept reaching a record high nationwide, the Game Market was featured on the day before on the national public broadcast NHK News as "a weekend amidst the surge of the 'third wave'". To prevent infection, more space was provided between the booths, the waiting line was split into five locations, the hall was ventilated, and all participants were requested to take their temperature, disinfect their hands and wear masks. Furthermore, hand sanitizers were installed at the booths.

Entrance split into five locations, 300 people each

Wash basins installed in the venue

Vending machine at the Oink Games booth

Gamestore Banesto's manager Mr. Nakano wearing a face guard and portable voice amplifier

Despite the difficulty of holding the show in these circumstances, I think it turned out to be a sociable event in which many participants enjoyed reunions in the not-too-crowded spacious venue. On the first day, I mainly walked around in Hall A with the block booths from mostly corporate organizations. I met friends and acquaintances here and there, and the morning passed quickly as we greeted each other with "It's been a while."

Even though the number of visitors was limited, there were still lines at popular booths. In Hall A, people formed a long queue at the Yellow Submarine booth to buy Geminoa, a new game from Domina Games, who was not present at the venue. There were long queues also at the booths of Hobby Japan and Arclight Games, who had pre-sales of imported games, and another queue for Are You Telling Me This Genius Scientist Can't Get First Place?, a new game designed by BakaFire, the author of Sakura Arms, and published by DELiGHTWORKS.

Geminoa is a deck-refining game designed by Pawn, the author of Shephy

Are You Telling Me This Genius Scientist Can't Get First Place? is a worker placement game to unlock abilities

Pre-sales of the new games from SPIEL.digital 2020 sent in by air freight at the Hobby Japan booth

Sugorokuya had their Japanese remake of Be My Valentine on display; they also hosted an in-venue deduction game event to celebrate the release of their Japanese edition of The Key

For those who could not come to the venue, there were live-streaming programs on Game Market Live from the satellite studio at the venue

Now, let me refer to some of the games that attracted people's attention in Hall A.

Tangleweed (from EJP Games) is a game about making money by planting and growing tumbleweeds rolling in the wind. Buy tiles or seeds, and place them on the board. When the wind blows in the direction of the dice roll, the tumbleweeds roll and drop seeds on their paths. You can create valuable tumbleweeds by combining multiple colors, so it is also important to choose which colors to plant.

Crash Octopus (from itten) is a flicking game to collect cargo floating on the table of ocean. The collected items are placed on the ship unstably, and the giant octopus gets in the way everywhere thanks to its tentacles.

The Wicked Forest (from Tactical Games) takes place in a scene after the Incan Gold-like adventure. Each time you flip a card, you choose to advance or turn back, and you can then use the collected crystals to acquire special abilities and victory points.

Perfumery (from Tactical Games) is an engine-building worker placement game to collect ingredients and make perfumes. The more cards you stack, the more essences you can extract from them to make high-grade perfumes.

Beer Hex (from BrainBrainGames) is a connection game to place beer bottle cap tokens of your color as concealed troops on the board in order to link your territories by them. The rule that allows you to announce and reveal three successive tokens of your opponent and remove them if they all turn out to be the opponent's troops makes it a clever mind game to read each other's thoughts.

In どっちぼーい /Docchi Boy (from ClaGla), one of the players answers yes/no
questions, and the other players bet on the final destination of where the answers lead to. The farther the destination you bet on, the harder it is to guess correctly, so the points you gain from it grows higher.

uZito (from Xaquinel) is a Villa Paletti-like balancing game using strange-shaped pieces. The pieces of varying weights provide odd stability. The heaviest pillars are made of brass. The clatter of the collapse is quite loud.

In Savannah Territory (from Banso Inc.), the players each try to place as many animals as possible from their hand, while making sure that the same animals are not placed adjacent to each other.

Schadenfreude (from Studio Turbine) and マチナミトリテ / "Machinami Torite" (Townscape Trick-taker) (from Kuondou) are both trick-taking games. In Schadenfreude, with a rule to go bust when exceeding the upper limit, the players try to force their cards upon one another. In "Machinami Torite", the players each play set collection using the back of the cards.

Lastly, here is Ken Shoda holding the Japanese edition of Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms (not sold at the TGM venue), saying "Let me also recommend this."

(Translator's note: The Japanese edition of Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms was recently published with the translation by Takuya Ono, who writes these Table Games in the World (TGiW) articles.)

•••

This is my second report on the Game Market, which was held after an interval of one year, during which Game Market had been cancelled twice due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The show took place at Tokyo Big Sight Aumi Exhibition Hall; the main hall was still unavailable due to the postponement of Tokyo Olympics

Game Market Management Office has announced that the attendance was 8,100 on the first day and 5,200 on the second day, which add up to 13,300 in total. This is 55% lower than that of the previous Game Market. The total number of booths in the two days has also dropped by 36% to 683. Initially, more groups had applied for the booths, but since free cancellations had been accepted due to the late announcement of admission restrictions after the call for exhibitors had been closed, the eventual number of booths had dropped by more than 10%. In the current situation with the coronavirus outbreak risk, I suppose that we might as well be happy that the show at least managed to take place at all.

There were demo tables set up only in some of the block booths, but the visitors had a time limit of only three hours to stay in the venue, so people were rarely seen playing at the demo tables. In these circumstances, Hall A with block booths was fairly deserted like "a weekday department store" (as said by karoku-san), but Hall B with individual booths seemed relatively crowded.

Hall B with individual booths

On the second day, there was a booth by Yusuke Inoue of the popular comedy duo NON STYLE. There, he sold the communication games he produced on his YouTube channel. He said that he was especially interested in the murder mystery games sold in the venue.

おもいをひとつにイッチッチ / Omoi wo Hitotsu ni Icchicchi (Match What's On Your Mind) produced by Yusuke Inoue of NON STYLE is a communication game in which players try to give the same answer to questions, such as "What's the second best high-end sushi restaurant for you?"

Now, here is my round-up of the 36 titles that attracted attention in Hall B:

Idle Hands (from Fukuroudou) is a trick-taking game to force negative point cards upon one another. The game adopts a unique "must lead" system in which you must lead suit based on the color of the cards in front of you.

Cat in the Box (from Ayatsurare Ningyoukan) is trick-taking in which you bid on the number of tricks you will win. Each time the lead player leads suit with a colorless number card from their hand, they declare its color (suit). Each set of color and number are recorded onto the communal research board. All cards played out must be unique; otherwise a paradox is formed, ending the round.

Rise of the Metro (from NANAWARI) is a route-building game without the element of luck in which each player tries to extend the lines of their color to connect to larger stations. You cannot connect the routes between two stations already connected by someone else.

ONE STORY (from scultur-at) is a tile-placement game to attract tenants by arranging room tiles. Each room tile comes in an envelope, and you do not know how it is shaped until you open the envelope.

Netacalaie (from Surume Days) is a word game of adding letters one by one to the topic word, then trying to guess the topic word from the final string of letters.

Daidara (from Hanami Gorilla) is a tile-placement game in which dwarfs work together to defeat the giant enemy Daidara. The dwarfs must prepare themselves to attack Daidara before it emerges.

Lemmings' Frontier (from Crittinia) is a co-operative game in which lemmings work together to explore a new wild land. You can use the resources to create tools and expand facilities.

Department Store Builder (from Sato Familie) is a card placement game in which you set up and arrange shops in a department store and attract customers. You're constantly faced with the choice between expanding your sales floors further and opening your department store before the others.

WORMS is a game about growing your worm longer while avoiding contact with other worms. If your worm bumps into another worm or itself, it will turn into an obstructive ghost.

Dragon Scary-go-round (from Popipopo Games) is a co-operative game in which the players try to defeat the dragon while avoiding getting caught by ghosts. You also need to watch out for the dragon's fire.

Gaming Spice (from Hanshakaijin Circle) is a social deduction game in which the players really taste eight kinds of spices, then each use a combination of word cards to create a menu item name for the spice they have tasted. The players then discuss to determine the spies who actually have not tasted the spice.

Toryo Hojo, disguised as the virtual board game designer "Yumeshima Kokon", released his new game Trump Recount!!. The game was distributed for free at the venue, and its rules were later revealed online.

Louloudic (from Northgame) is a flicking game using mini sticks on a wood-burned board, was sold for 80,000 yen, and was already sold out by reservation.

Le Torri di San Gimignano (from Tarte Games) is a two-player game in which players compete to build the highest tower by playing the same number cards or number cards in descending order. Since the number on each card matches the available number of the card, like one "1" and two "2"s, it becomes harder the higher you go.

Rosarium (from L.A.G. Craft) is a two-player area-majority game to move your gardeners and plant more roses than your opponent in each flower bed. There is also an expansion for 3-4 players.

In 滅茸 / Metzutake (from インベード. / Invade.), the players place various mushroom tiles in rows secretly and choose which rows to take. Beware of poisonous mushrooms!

Sushi-Trick! (from Game NOWA) is a trick-taking game in which you may follow suit and try to take just the right amount of sushi. You can also gain points by playing the highest number card among the consecutive number trump cards in the same trick.

不謹慎王 / Fukinshin-Ou (Outrageous King) (from Kakugari Books) is a communication game whereby the players compete to give outrageous answers as agony aunts and uncles.

Yura Yura Penguin (from Yabuchi Ryoko) is a Rhino Hero-like balancing game to play cards of the same color or icon and have the next player stack pieces, such as icebergs, penguins and rock ice cubes.

Herbarium (from DYNAGOOON FACTORY) is a set-collection game to collect ingredient tokens from the play area and form hands. While the tiles you take without using them count as negative points, you might still want to venture to take them in order to aim for a higher score.

LINKAGE (from MAGNET) is a non-contact action game in which the players try to balance sticks between their fingers according to the instructions on the cards.

EETenki: The Queen Himiko Chronicles (from Accent Circonflexe) is a strategy game in which the players, each as a priestess-king who can master sorcery, control the weather and manage farming and trading. Its second edition will be released in 2021 via Kickstarter.

Hollywood Sensation (from Suki Games) is a two-player trick-taking game with a dilemma to handle the tricks you want and the tricks you do not want. This game was designed by Shibu, who sells board games at his supermarket in Tsumagoi Village in Gunma Prefecture, and its illustration was done by Natsuki Sakamoto, who runs a design company in the same village (and readily accepts board game artwork orders)!

Janken No Border (from Ponkotsu Farm) is a card game to play rock-paper-scissors with cards that are still uncertain which among "rock", "paper" and "scissors" they fall into when you play them. Then the cards eventually remaining in the players' hands will determine what range of cards actually count as "scissors" for each player.

Bomb Squad (from OKAZU Brand) is a co-operative deduction game to locate the cards arranged in ascending order in each other's hand in order to complete a series of missions.

Return Home (from COLON ARC) is an action-programming cooperative game to control rovers moving from a spaceship, which crash-landed on an asteroid, to collect the scattered parts and return to Earth. One of the players monitors disaster events and if any rover player plays an action shown on the event card, their action is cancelled.

Last Boss (from Shoma Cafe) is a co-operative game in which the players prepare to fight against the approaching boss enemy in their homeland. The boss enemy gets infuriated and grows stronger by the battle, so the key to victory lies in how far you can wait and postpone the battle.

まちビルド / Machi Build (from The Trading City Kenkyuukai) is a game to build a city by
drawing blocks from the box and stacking them. This game, produced by a group of first-class registered architects, lets you experience and enjoy authentic building restrictions and urban planning.

ラビットストリーム / Rabbit Stream (from RABI) is a racing game to help your rabbit
advance by creating your rabbit cheering squad formation. Ascending to higher levels will allow you to form even more powerful formations.

タイムボム・レガシー / TimeBomb Legacy (from New Board Game Party) has additional story elements to the original TimeBomb, which has been published internationally.

Paku Paku Park (from Kawasaki Factory), a two-player game to gather animals by feeding them, was reissued after an interval of five years.

Monken (Monster Exploration Association) (from 4tousei) is a worker placement game with a memory element to flip cards in order to catch and collect monsters.

Izayoi (from nanatsumu) is a game to collect wakomono items, such as Kanzashi hairpins and folding fans, by exchanging recommendation cards while taking care not to exceed the score of your "master" so that they will not lose face.

In パタルタ / Pataruta (from Todonotsumari), the players race to take cards according to
the revealed Venn diagrams made up of the patterns matching the patterns on a combination of cards.

国分町酔生夢死 / Kokubuncho Suiseimushi (from Veronica Persica) is a tile-placement game set in the nightlife district of Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture.

Sprinkle (from Kogumayan) is an area-control game in which the players, as forest trees, with the help from flying squirrels, try to have their seeds moved to the lands with rain and sunlight in order to expand their habitat.

At the booth of Sengoku ZiPANG Portable (from Engine ID, Ltd.), a card game launched via Kickstarter, the game was being promoted and sold by people in shrine maiden and warlord cosplays.

There were many new games, including those initially scheduled to be released at the two cancelled Game Markets. Also, with a long interval of one year after the last Game Market, I encountered many high-quality games produced with time and care. On the other hand, the sales seemed to struggle at many booths due to the admission restriction. There are certainly many people who could not visit the show but who want to acquire the games released there, so I hope that these games will soon be available online.

The next Game Market is scheduled to take place on March 28 (Sunday) at Intex Osaka, and the next Tokyo Game Market is scheduled to be held two weeks after that on April 10 (Sat) and 11 (Sun) at Tokyo Big Sight. Although the situation concerning the coronavirus still remains unpredictable, I hope that the know-hows learned by holding the current Game Market will be used effectively to hold the upcoming shows successfully as well.

•••

Arclight Games Award 2020 — Grand Prize Won by Dokitto! Ice
(posted on Nov. 16, 2020 on TGiW)

On the first day of Tokyo Game Market 2020 Autumn on December 14, Arclight Games announced the winners of Arclight Games Award 2020, with the grand prize being awarded to ドキッと！アイス (Dokitto! Ice).

Arclight Games has started hosting this award to evaluate the games released or scheduled to be released in the last three Game Markets (two of which were cancelled) and announce the award on Tokyo Game Market Autumn with plans to publish the games that receive the award. The games are screened and selected by the Arclight Games production department staff according to criteria, such as "fun experience", "replayability", "appeal that makes one want to introduce the game to others", "appeal to the people who watches the game being played", "general appeal over the time", and "suitability to the current trend". Generally, the game that receives the grand prize will be published from Arclight Games within a year upon agreement.

The announcement, hosted by Tomohiro Kaneko of Arclight Games, was made at the GameMarket.live studio in the Tokyo Game Market venue at 12:00. The award winners promptly announced it at their booths to help promote their games.

At this first Arclight Games Award, ドキッと！アイス (Dokitto! Ice) was selected as the grand prize winner. In this trick-taking game released by Lana&Papa for Tokyo Game Market 2020 Spring (cancelled), you can acquire ice cream tiles by winning the tricks, but there is the risk of dropping out by taking too many ice creams. Mr. Kaneko commented on the game, saying "The balance of its flavor and artwork makes it nicely fit to play lightly", "The shifting between the instances to push or pull according to the situation is fun, and there is always a chance with whatever hand you may have as the game proceeds", and "Stacking too many ice creams resulting in busting and dropping them and then dropping
out is visually persuasive".

The winner of the excellence award was そこまで絞るにはねむれない夜もあっただろ /
Soko Made Shiboru Niwa Nemurenai Yoru Mo Attadaro (You must have had sleepless nights to tighten your body so much), a card game to cheer bodybuilders. Then eight titles were announced as honorable mentions.

• Grand Prize: ドキッと！アイス (Dokitto! Ice) (from Lana&Papa)

• Excellence Award: そこまで絞るにはねむれない夜もあっただろ / Soko Made Shiboru
Niwa Nemurenai Yoru Mo Attadaro (You must have had sleepless nights to tighten your
body so much) (from Wit Mashimashi)

• Honorable Mentions:
—3ターンだけ君が好き / I Like You for Only 3 Turns (from Mott Game)
—SCOUT! (from One More Game!)
—エスペライゼーション / Esperaization (from treehoppergames)
—ガムトーク / Gum Talk (from Kakugari Books)
—マネーフェイカー / Money Faker (from Patisserie Dilemma)
—The Era of Traveling Merchant (from A.I.Lab. You)
—四畳半ペーパー賽系 / Yojouhan Paper Saikei (from Hallelujah Rockboy)
—宝石がいっぱい / Lot of Gems (from Lifetime Games)