Designed by: Bruno Cathala
Okiya is a two-player puzzle game with an interesting twist.
Like Noughts and Crosses or Connect Four, your aim is to form your own tokens into a game-winning pattern: in Okiya that’s either four-in-a-row, or a 2×2 square. But you can’t simply go wherever you like! At the start of the game 16 tiles are laid out in a 4×4 grid, forming the playing area. The tiles each have two elements on them – one vegetation (cherry, iris, maple or pine) and one ‘poetic symbol’ (sun, rain, bird or tanzaku (the red scroll)).
The starting player can begin anywhere on the border (i.e. not the four central tiles) – they simply remove the tile and replace it with their token. But thereafter the active player must always follow a simple rule – they can only replace a tile that shares a vegetation or symbol with the tile that has just been removed. So if the starting player removes a tile with cherry and sun, for instance, the opponent must remove a tile that has either cherry or sun on it. As the game progresses, options become increasingly limited…
Best played as a best-of-three, with the younger player starting.
It's a battle, really, despite the poetic nature of the tiles.
Well, you're only waiting for one other player when it's not your turn. But there may be the odd lull as they try and navigate their way through the potential options...
Rules are very simple. But winning is not.
The random set-up means the game avoids a sense of rinse-and-repeat. But beyond that there's not a lot of variation here. That said as a quick ten-minute game (best of three) it beats noughts and crosses hands down.
Sam says
A sweet little game that can be diverting enough for adults to play, but accessible for young kids. Rules couldn't be simpler, and implementing them can be a potential teaching tool (using the term loosely!) for budding tacticians.