Bamboo Review

Bamboo is all about achieving balance in your home and life. Players will be harvesting bamboo to carry out actions and try and earn the favor of the spirits. On your turn, you'll designate the incense you have of a matching color to the altars of the same color on the main board. Then all of the bamboo you have that match the color will determine the actions that you carry out. Actions can vary from collecting room tiles for your home, new ways to score/score your rooms, earn money, and gather food. When you do the scoring action, you'll select a tile on your board and verify that it matches the parameters and move it over so you get more room to add more scoring tiles. Whatever bamboo you played is added to the bottom of the shoots on the board and then pushed upwards. You'll collect the overgrown shoots and add them to your player board for your next turns. After players have all passed, the player who has the most incense at each altar will win the spirit card. These can give you special abilities for the rest of the game whenever they're triggered. Finally, you'll need to feed your family. For each room tile you have, you'll pay 1 food or else you'll lose points. The game plays like this for 4 rounds and whoever has the most points is the winner.

The Good: I absolutely love the idea of grabbing overgrown bamboo for your new actions. It adds an extra layer to your planning because you need to almost always be thinking at least 1 turn ahead. Bamboo is a lot more puzzley than it's predecessor Bitoku but it's not a bad thing at all. They share a universe with Bamboo being much lighter but still packed to the brim of strategy and planning. I love the overall look of the game and the way it captures the essence of the Japanese folklore and concept of balance.

The Okay: For the most part in the game, I didn't really care about what the object I was collecting was beyond the symbol and the comfort points. Most times I can't confidently say I even looked at what it was as long as it fit my scoring needs. That's always a bummer with games like this that are as good looking as they are. At two players, there's a dummy 3rd player that takes up spaces at the altars with their incense which I don't mind but early on, it felt extremely difficult to actually gain spirits because of the randomized amount of pieces that were added to it. If there was a tie, the player that was physically on top would win and they get added last.

The Not So Good: I could do without the whole feeding your family thing (in game, not in real life). Needing to spend actions to gain food felt like it was taking away from more productive actions. I'm obviously not a game designer so it may have been added for balancing purposes but in the games that I played, I just didn't particularly care to have to worry about it. Because most scoring happens during the game, there is the possibility of a runaway game that you're suffering through to finish. While rare, it can happen which can deter some people from playing again.

Final Thoughts: When I first learned of another game from the Bitoku universe I jumped at the chance to play it. Some may be expecting a lighter version of that but Bamboo stands entirely it's own. The action selection is incredibly unique and the game is on point thematically all the way through. Plus you can play as a family of pandas which feels like a selling point on its own. Ultimately, Bamboo is a much more user friendly game than it's big brother and it deserves a spot in my collection.

Thanks to Devir and Off Duty Ninjas for providing a review copy.