Wasabi!: Completing Sushi Recipes — With Style!
For the past two years, every time there was a board-game garage sale or flea market, I’d always be on the lookout for Wasabi! It’s an older Z-Man game from 2008, and it’s on my list of grail games that I wished I had a copy of. Recently, my Hooked On Geek podcast co-host Greg randomly mentioned in an episode that it was a grail game of mine, and then two weeks ago, Mike said he was going to send me his copy because it never got played. Wow!! The board game community is seriously just so frakkin’ awesome.
Wasabi! is a 2-4 player sushi tile-laying game in which you’re trying to complete recipes — sometimes with style — and gain victory points. Game play is about 60 minutes, and the components and artwork are just delightful. There’s rice, various types of seafood, vegetables and sushi add-ons.
Each player has a screen to hide ingredient tiles and recipe cards, and a cute little red bowl for wasabi green cubes to sit in. The board looks like a giant sushi mat, with a grids to show where to lay down the ingredient tiles. Each player also has 10 challenge tokens for scoring recipes.
Each player starts with three ingredient tiles, which are chosen by the person on their right, and three recipes, which are chosen by the player themselves. Recipe cards come with 2, 3, 4 or 5 ingredients.
On your turn, you must place a tile anywhere on the board, and then you may play an action card (before or after placing the tile). If you put down a tile that has the same ingredients on a recipe card in any order in a straight row or column, you score that recipe by flipping over one of your challenge tokens that matches the number of ingredients on the recipe.
For 3-, 4- or 5-ingredient recipes, if you complete the recipe in the exact order that’s shown on the recipe card, you’ve completed the recipe in style! This will net you the VPs on the challenge token, plus some wasabi, which is one point each at the end of the game. For each recipe you complete on your turn, you pick up an action card.
You can also play an action card before or after laying down the tile, depending on the action card. There are two each of five action cards available for players to pick. The Stack card allows you place an ingredient on top of another ingredient already on the board. The Spicy card allows you to place two ingredients during your turn. The Switch card allows you to switch two ingredients adjacent to each other. The Chop card allows you take take one ingredient off the board, and then you may either place that ingredient for your turn or return that card back to the pantry.
Lastly, the Wasabi card allows you to take one wasabi cube for yourself and place it on the board to cover four ingredients. This means that players can’t complete a recipe if those ingredient tiles are covered up, and no covered square may be affected by another action card. To get the Wasabi card off the board, you must select the Wasabi card when you complete a recipe and are allowed to pick a card.
When you’re done with your turn, you select ingredient tiles from the pantry to place behind your screen so that you always have three. You also choose face-down recipes to place behind your screen so that you have three as well.
The meat of the game comes down to the puzzle aspect of laying down your tiles. It’s like building a crossword, but other people keep getting in the way. You may want to complete bigger recipes for more VPs, but the board can get tight very quickly and it’s very difficult to get all those tiles down without an opponent messing with your plans.
The action cards give you ways to manipulate the tile placement, but you only get them when you complete recipes. Also, you have to place the tile that completes your recipe, and it can’t be done by another player. As ingredients get used, you’ll see there are some recipes that you won’t ever be able to complete. Lastly, you have to have a challenge token available to use for whichever size recipe you finish.
The game immediately ends when the board is completely filled up, or a player scores all 10 of their challenge tokens. Players add up their recipe scores and wasabi in their bowl, and the person with the most VPs wins the game. In the case of a tie, the person with the most wasabi cubes wins the game.
I can’t even tell you how happy I am that I got a copy of this game. The board-game community never ceases to amaze me! Bonus, too, that my gamer guys really liked it, and they were surprised by how puzzly this game is despite the adorable artwork. And afterwards, we agreed that we all wanted some sushi next time we get this on table.