Bitoku

Bitoku occupies the table as though it is worried you might have room for a drink. Colours, tokens, cards, meeples, and a rulebook apparently applying for its own postcode. It is impressive. It is also the sort of box that makes friends ask what on earth you bought this time.

At its centre are light deck-building, dice manipulation, and placement. Dice and cards create your options; you gradually improve what you can do, then try to sequence those actions properly. There are clever ideas in the machinery, and once it starts moving, it has the satisfying feel of something that has finally stopped rattling.

Around that core sit card drafting, engine building, and several further systems. Players chiefly affect one another by occupying the available spaces and by timing their choices against everyone else’s. A little back-and-forth with the excellent player aid makes the flow intelligible, and there is a faint echo of Lisboa; the game just seems in danger of collapsing under the effort of explaining everything without sending its players away screaming.

The trouble is that the actions do not all carry the same weight. Some are plainly stronger than others, while the scoring feels less refined than such an elaborate construction ought to be. Worse, there is no compensating handicap for the second, third, or fourth player, despite the first player enjoying a clear advantage in the opening round. It is lovely to look at. So is a maze of mechanisms.

I enjoyed the play, but not as much as I expected to. Other players who have tried it several times think far more highly of it, so one game is not a final verdict. For now, though, the table’s judgement feels fair: Bitoku is thoroughly mediocre.