Sharp eyed forumites may have noticed that nothing happened here last week. I know we did a check-in six months or so back. I think I’m personally tapering off on topics - though I’ve enjoyed the last year and a half of this.
I’m not done just yet, but I’d anticipate in the next few months I’ll post a final sign-off.
But for this week! And a few after! I’m thinking about geography and setting. I’ll throw out East Asia, and define it with a line running between Iran and all the *stans next to it, also walling off Russia to the north (as excluded).
What are your games in South, East, and Southeast Asia? Any special affinity for it, and do any common themes come out in these games (presumably evoked by the settings)?
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A contextless note on games I own with these settings:
- Iki
- Yokohama
- White Castle (sell pile)
- Mottainai
- Hanabi
- Samurai
- Shikoku 1889
- Nippon Zaibatsu
- Rajas of the Ganges
- Jaipur
- John Company 2e
- Yellow & Yangtze
- Gugong
- Pax Pamir 2e
- Formosa Tea
- Tindahan
- Indonesia
- Seasons of Rice
- Worldbreakers
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Off the top of my head, I have the following games that are either set in East Asia, or at least have a theme that leans that way:
Jaipur
Gugong
Yokohama
Tokaido
Hanamikoji
Age of War
Shogun
Ghost Stories
Samurai Spirit
Godzilla: Tokyo Clash
King of Tokyo
Hokkaido
Legacy of Yu
Kiri-ai: the Duel
Floating Floors
Night of the Ninja
Yokai Septet
Takenoko
Unmatched: Sun’s Origin (and I suppose the Bruce Lee character expansion)
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I live in East Asia and some of my favourite games are set “here”, so I have some affinity for it.
A common “theme” I don’t like is so many Japanese-y games seemingly taking place during the same week of the year, despite other weeks also existing in Japan.
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I do seem to anticipate that rice and copper will be resources in these games. The former pretty appropriately. The latter feels more like “I read a book and remember one fact about Japan so let’s make something about copper.”
Overindexed on tea as well.
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I’m not really a theme person. But I kept Filipino Fruit Market and Luzon Rails because Philippines
The games I kept mainly because I like the gameplay
- Pax Pamir 1e
- Indonesia
- Tonga Bonga
- Kaivai
- Bridges of Shangri-La - not a real place but Shangri-La is supposely set in Tibet
- An Infamous Traffic
- Trendy - setting not really specified, but I have this edition
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My list of games set in East Asia
- Shikoku 1889
- Hanamikoji
- Trains/Rising Sun
- Tindahan
- Tokyo Metro
- Indonesia
- Mottainai
- The Legend of the Cherry Tree That Blossoms Every Ten Years
- Iki
- Agra
- Hanabi?
Where does Tigris & Euphrates sit on this dividing line? Just in or just out? I think just out but not fully confident.
In some ways it feels quite over represented at over 10 percent of my collection. I wonder about this but won’t speculate here as I think it drops probably needs a political discussion. Also of interest is half these games set in east Asia are designed by East Asian designers. With 3 more games by east asian designers not set in East Asia. I wonder how this compares to games put out by East Asian designers as a percentage of the market overall. As Burano, Iki, Hanamikoji and 1889 are regularly amongst my top games I think that East Asian designers are doing well. On a very old SUSD podcast Quinns made a comment about social context being important for game design and so game designers from different contexts will necessarily make different games. I think there’s something about that but also feel it’s disprovable quite easily with counter example. No idea which episode just a long time ago. It does feel like games from East Asia are often a little more experimental or theoretical on a game play concept angle than many from
Europe or North America currently. Possibly some confirmation bias or advertising pick ups there but also possibly to do with size and costs of Essen compared to Tokyo Game Market and the expectations of what success looks like to attendees.
The most consistent theme is trains in East Asia for me. Sadly it seems Japanese women in stereotype is second place. As Legend Cheery Tree and Hanamikoji both arguably fit this category. Good job they don’t have leery art as well.
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I don’t think i have any strongly thematic games with an East/South Asian setting. Onitama, Ghost Stories, Hanamikoji, Yokai Septet could all be (and two of them have been) released with entirely different settings. I don’t think I can really count Kabuto Sumo either!
So if I’m looking for a game in which the setting is in this region and more than just a coat of paint…?
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I tried to sort a bit by how strong the Asian aspects of the theme are … but it’s difficult.
- Pax Pamir–Afghan history gets the Pax treatment
- John Company–(have only played a learning game, I feel inadequate to provide a hot-take)
- Let’s Go! To Japan–cozy travel planing
- Formosa Tea–tea themed worker placement
- IKI–something something trade (have yet to play but own the expansion! Go me!)
- Ghost Stories–a Chinese village becomes overrun by ghosts (inevitably)
- Kanagawa–create beautiful paintings. Cozy and pretty.
- Kabuto Sumo–insect wrestling
- Izayoi–a small KS I backed and never managed to play, something about giving an receiving presents
- Shinjuku–shopping in Tokyo
- Chu Han–Tom Lehmann does Chinese court intrigue with cards
- Yamataï–build up the mythical lands. Recommended by Zee. I traded for it and have yet to play years later. But it sure looks pretty
- Miyabi–build a beautiful Japanese garden by stacking tiles (by Haba!)
- Nekojima–beware the fat cat pulling down all the powerlines
- Hanabi–create beautiful fireworks without communicating
- Sushi Go!–beware the pudding moguls
- Dorfromantik: Sakura–certainly prettier than the original Dorf. Still Dorf though. But cherry blossoms.
- edit: Mottainai–I haven’t played often enough to realize the theme was… Asian (oops)
Excluded:
- I haven’t included Babylonia, Polynesia because I am not sure they are included in “East Asia”
- games I don’t own any more like Samurai, Tokaido, Hanamikoji and Alubari.
- games like Imperium:Foo that have a few Asian elements but aren’t predominantly set in Asia.
- games by Asian designers like Newsboys, In Front of the Elevators, Aqua Garden
- edit: anticipated games with Asian themes like Koi (looks sooo pretty)
- edit2: games I hope will eventually be released in a new edition for me to acquire with or without cherry blossoms and picnics (Samurai)
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And I still regret giving it away in the great 2019 purge.
I forgot Mottainai and Shinjuku.
I really want to play Shinjuku again. The whole shared infrastructure is really fun! The contemporary style art feels nice as it is set in modern day Japan.
Mottainai is Mottainai. But I’m feeling now that Glory to Rome allows more long term stuff to happen with its longer duration. Theme is non-existent. It’s this vague minimalist lifestyle of a Buddhist monk (from what I remember!). I have this ““problem”” with Innovation as well (it’s not really a problem).
Pax Pamir 1e - A sliver of it is in Iran but we’re gonna ignore that. I like both editions, but Werhle put the scoring track in 2e. I like the theme of geopolitical struggle between the two imperial powers. What I also like is that the Afghans are a faction in the game. It’s not a chess game where there are two players and every one else are just chess pieces.
This is an often wrong perception of the Cold War too and it is also used as a lens on other geopolitical conflicts as well. And so you have this awful conversation among White people (thinking about it, it’s even narrow than that. Just Western people!! See how these ghouls talk about the Ukrainians) who talks about these topics from THIS specific angle and heavily implies that non-Western peoples have zero agency. Significant power imbalance especially after the Industrial Revolution? Yes. Zero agency? No.
It’s the infantilisation of the various nations of the former colonised world. Which is still an awfully common trope today.
An Infamous Traffic - unlike JoCo, the game play is streamlined and abstracted so the game is often at the forefront rather than the theme. Like, there’s no effect in the game of us selling opium to the Chinese. You might as well sell anything. But that’s fine if the author wants to narrow the scope.
Indonesia - I like how Splotter utilises the seas as the way to transport goods between A and B - rather than railroads.
Tonga Bonga, Kaivai, Bridges of Shangri-La - these are so old school that the theme is so pasted on.
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I haven’t played but isn’t it just like rails on the sea (routes) or can you go anywhere?
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The former. 
You need a chain of ships from the same company to transport from A to B
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So “Ship To Sail: Indonesia” 
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Oops, I forgot Maharaja: The Game of Palace Building in India.
I should probably point out that out of the now 20 games I have listed with an East Asian theme, I have only actually played 13 of them, and of those 2 were not a physical copy.
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I’m definitely seeing Japan win the overall popularity contest for this subsection of the world.
Which is a bit not-interesting - most of the designers I can think of from this area are Japanese and as far as game exports, most of those come from Japan. And with video games and cartoons the English speaking world has the most affinity for Japan.
But also is interesting, as things like Chinese dynasties, Genghis Khan, South China Sea piracy, urbanization of Singapore, the himalayas - there’s just a lot of ripe content that doesn’t involve samurai or edo period or dutch trade.
Which triggers some games that none of us have mentioned:
- Nanga Parbat
- K2
- Honshu
- Marco Polo I / II
- Takenoko (…pandas. Is this China with a Japanese sounding name?)
- Sekigahara
- Rising Sun
- King of Tokyo
Still weighted to Japan.
edit: And I can’t think of a single game that touches either Korea. Interesting.
I own Kanagawa and have played
Hanabi
King of Tokyo
Takenoko
Tokaido.
I very much want to play:
Pax Pamir 2nd
John Company 2nd
Iki
and want to play some tea-themed games even though I don’t drink tea:
Alubari
Ceylon
Formosa Tea
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In general the pipeline is more established. I think for media, arts and culture.
Eros Lin designed my favourite game and they’re from Taiwan however the game is set in olden times Italy
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Based mostly on what tags are used on BGG…
Japan
- Broken and Beautiful: A Game About Kintsugi
- Hanamikoji
- Hokkaido
- Iki
- Kodachi
- Micro Dojo
- Mottainai
- Sakura
- Senjutsu: Battle For Japan
- Senshi
- String Railway
- Takenoko (I believe the panda is supposed to have been a gift to the Japanese Emperor)
- Tokyo Highway
- Tokyo Metro
- Yedo
- Yokohama
Japan-esque or unspecified East Asian
- Battle for Rokugan
- Hiroba
- Jigūan: The Eastern Mechanist
- Kabuto Sumo: Sakura Slam (very tenuous)
- Rising Sun
- Tsukuyumi
China
- Bamboo
- Crossroads of Heroes
- Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
- Herbalism
- Lanterns: the harvest festival
India
- Holi: festival of colours
- John Company 2E
Afghanistan
Phillipines
There are quite a few war games on BGG and inevitably an 18Korea.
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I used to own King of Tokyo and Takenoko. The former is with my nephew who enjoyed the game a lot when we brought it along on a visit and the latter got boring after we discovered that one of the scoring mechanisms was stronger than the others (or at least it seemed that way back then and I don’t remember which one)
That one slipped through my searches. I own it as well.
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