In the mood for Sushi Go!

I recently had two back-to-back weekend events with my core group of friends. During the first weekend, I introduced them to Sushi Go! and Survive: Escape from Atlantis! (I just now noticed that these two game titles both have exclamation points in their names). Both games were a big hit with my friends, so much so that two different people purchased Sushi Go! later in the week, and one of them also purchased Survive and its expansions.

The following Sunday was Easter, so we all met up again for a potluck brunch and spent a sunny-but-not-so-hot Phoenix day outside playing games and trying to kill each other’s meeples and take each other’s sushi.  Mwahaha. It seriously was a lot of fun.

Sushi Go! is a quick 15-minute card-drafting game where you are trying to collect sets of sushi cards. And let me tell you … the artwork on the cards is seriously one of the most adorable things I’ve seen! The game itself comes in this solid tin box (which is easily transportable in your bag), and the rules are very easy to explain. For a five-player game, each person gets 7 cards at the start of the round; there are three rounds in the entire game.

Game play goes like this — Players simultaneously pick their first card to flip over in front of them, and then pass along the 6 leftover cards to the next player. That’s it! When there are no more cards to pass to the next player, the round ends. Repeat for two more rounds, and the person with the most points wins.  How you score points depends on which cards you pick.

There are 8 kinds of cards: Tempura, Sashimi, Dumpling, Maki rolls, Nigiri, Wasabi, Pudding and Chopsticks. At the bottom of each card, it explains how many points a card is worth, depending on how many you collect. Tempura gets you 5 points for every two cards. Sashimi gets you 10 points if you collect 3. For Dumplings, the more you have, the more points you get with each one (1, 3, 6, 10, 15 points for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 dumplings).

Maki rolls, which come in 1, 2 or 3 rolls per card, gives you 6 points if you have the most, and 3 points if you have the second most in the round. It does not depend on the number of Maki roll cards you have, which caused some confusion in one of our first games.

Nigiri is worth 1, 2 or 3 points, depending on the type. If you have Wasabi with your Nigiri, it triples the value of your Nigiri card. If you have a couple of Nigiri already played, then the Wasabi can go to the sushi of your choice. If your Wasabi has already been played, the next Nigiri card played is what it immediately goes with.

Pudding cards are the only cards that carry over from round to round. It gives you 6 points if you have the most Pudding cards and subtracts 6 points if you have the least after the 3 rounds. If there’s a tie, players split the points. The Chopsticks card allows you to pick up 2 cards on a future turn within the same round. Plus, you get to yell “Sushi Go!” when you take that action.

The first round passes cards to the left, the second round to the right, and the third to the left. You count up your scores after each round, and the cards are discarded. The person with the most points wins. In the case of a tie, the person with the most pudding wins.  Yay for pudding, or flan as we all like call it! It’s a quick great game that I highly recommend for all kinds of gamers. Plus, everybody will seriously fall in love with the adorable artwork.