TOKYO TSUKIJI MARKET

In Tokyo Tsukiji Market I found that familiar, thoroughly Japanese weirdness of Draper’s games again: a very strong economic game with no luck, which nevertheless plays nothing like what you would imagine when you hear “production and markets.” It is one of those games that sits quietly on the table at first, then makes you wonder whether you actually understood what just happened in the fish markets. Unlike Tokyo Metro, where I found the minimalism charming and helpful, here that same minimalism makes the game harder to read.

Its core is economic: players move around goods markets and try to make the most of production and the available markets. The crucial point is that prices are not a neutral board in the background; they are set by player choices. Every action can shift the balance across different fish markets, and the game asks you to track not only what benefits you now, but also what changes for everyone else.

That is where its interaction lies: nobody needs to hit you with some crude take-that move to put you under pressure. A lack of risk-taking from the other players can allow one side to gain an early lead, especially when certain markets appear quickly. Thankfully, the relatively easy endgame conditions keep such a game from turning into a slog, while the requirement that you must achieve at least one endgame condition without being the worst at the other is a very good safeguard.

I would not call it bad in any sense; quite the opposite: for people who enjoy economic games, and especially games where the players themselves set the prices of goods, it is absolutely worth seeking out. Just do not expect to untangle it on your first encounter: your brain gets clogged trying to understand, if you understand at all, how everything connects. Had it been released in a standard production, I think it would have become a respectable hit. As it stands, it remains a distinctive piece, short enough that you should give it two or three chances before deciding exactly what you have in your hands.

Updated session

On the second visit to the pangolins’ wet markets, when I showed it to the kids, my opinion did not change: it remains a very interesting economic game with strong interaction through pricing. This particular game did tilt early, though, because the markets that appeared and the caution of the other players locked in the result relatively quickly. That did not make it a miserable experience, precisely because the ending arrives fairly easily, but it confirmed that it deserves a few plays before you form a final opinion.