Bitoku

Bitoku arrived carrying all the weight of “the difficult, hard-to-find euro of the season”: a riot of colours, tokens, cards, meeples, and a rulebook that seems to have decided to test me personally. It is one of those games that sends my group’s “what-the-hell-did-you-buy” meter into dangerous territory. Still, it is not merely a deranged mess for its own sake; it is very clear that a great deal of work went into making its chaos ultimately teachable and playable.

At its core, the game combines dice placement, card drafting, engine building, a small deck-building element, and dice manipulation. At first, all of this looks as though it was shoved into the box because nobody wanted to leave out their favourite mechanism. Yet the individual rules make sense, and after a little back-and-forth with the excellent player aid, they begin to click together. Once the group understands what each part is for, the flow settles into place impressively.

Players place and use their dice, gradually build their capabilities through cards, and try to turn that personal system into better actions and points. It reminded me a little of Lisboa, in the sense that its complexity finds a rhythm once the initial explanation is behind you. This is where my reservations begin, though: the mini deck-building core, dice management, and placement are very good and contain some clever ideas, but certain actions plainly seem better than others. And the fact that the first player has a clear advantage in the opening round without any handicap for everyone else is, honestly, criminal.

I had a good time with Bitoku, just not as good a time as I expected after all that noise. The scoring did not feel as carefully polished as it should have, and overall the game seems to buckle slightly under the effort of fitting in so much. For now, I am inclined to agree with the table’s verdict: purely average. That said, other BLTGers who have played it two or three times have nothing but good things to say, so I am keeping some reserve before filing it away for good.