28th March 2021

I'm logged into Board Game Arena on PC and it's the final game of this Sunday gaming session.

The final game of the day was Kingdomino, my thoughts about it are here.

28th March 2021

I'm logged into my PC and Sunday gaming on Board Game Arena continued.

The next game of the day was Potion Explosion, a game about creating magic spells through set collecting and a match 3 mechanic.
That's right.
"Yer a wizard Har," no, no, let's not go there!

Caveat: The digital version of the game was played, but previously we have also played a physical copy.

What's in a game?

• Marbles: the game comes with actual glassy marbles in 4 colours, red, blue, yellow & Black. These represent the 4 different types ingredients used to create potions.
• Dispenser: This is a box with 5 holes on the top and protruding out of one side of it are 5 sloped grooves or tracks. Marbles are poured into the box through the top and then roll out into the tracks to create 5 (hopefully) random columns of marbles.
• Potion tiles: These obviously potion shaped tiles are double sided. There are various different types of potion that have differing effects in game.
  On one side, the main part of the tile/bottle is split into 2 or 3 different coloured segments, each of these segments contain holes which allow the marbles that players collect to sit on the tile.
  ​The other side of potions tiles show the points they score after completion.
• Player board: These large tiles have two recessed curves that allow potions to fit into the recesses, there is also a space with 3 holes to store 3 unused marbles.
  This is designed to look a bit like a worktop with a pair of Bunsen burners and a flask.
• Skill tokens: These rectangular tokens are accumulated throughout the game and earn bonus victory points, they also serve as a countdown timer to end a game.
• Help tokens: Players can take these to receive some help but they also deduct from victory points at the end of the game.

All of the components in Potion Explosion are top notch, the dispenser and the marbles may seem gimmicky but in practice work quite well. The remainder of the components, the tiles and tokens are all made of good quality materials.
The game's art style and theme obviously draw some inspiration from the you-know-who films but that's fine. For the most part there isn't too much art on the components but what there is, is bright and colourful.

What's in a game?
Setup

• Establish a turn order and give each player a player board.
• Fill the dispenser with dice. All 5 tracks should be filled with marbles.
• Set out all the potions that will used (Not all potion types are used in every game), then set out the marked starting potion tiles. The remaining potions should be shuffled and placed into 5 stacks with the uncompleted side up.
• Create a stack of help tokens, size dependant on the number of players.
• Players each take a starting potion one at a time in the order specified and add it to their player board until everyone has two potions.

Now the game's ready to go.

On to play
In Potion Explosion, players use the marbles to complete their potions, these earn victory points. Completed potions can also be used to give the respective player a special action to perform.
Play starts with the starting player and progresses clockwise. The following actions are available to players.

• Take ingredient: The active player must take 1 marble from any spot in any of the 5 tracks in the dispenser.
  Potion explosion: When an marble is removed from a track, the marble(s) above will slide down and hit the marble below (Provided there is a marble below.), if the marbles that collided are the same colour, then this triggers the titular potion explosion. The active player then collects the marbles of the same colour that hit each other, this includes other marbles of the same colour connected to the marbles that connected. Once these marbles are collected, it possible that another potion explosion can be triggered and another and so on. This is essentially a match-3 or in this case a match-2 mechanic.
  Place ingredients: Once the active player has collected all the marbles available, those marbles must be placed on the empty holes on their potion tiles and the colours must match; red marbles must go on to holes on the red segment of a potion and so on. If there are not enough holes for all the marbles the player has accumulated on the potion tiles for any reason, then they can place up to 3 on the flask, these can be used in later turns.
  Any excess marbles must be returned to the dispenser. 
  Complete potion: Once all the holes on a potion tile are filled with marbles, it has been completed. All marbles should be removed and returned them to the dispenser. The tile is removed from the player board, flipped to the opposite (completed) side and placed next to the player board.
• Gain a skill token: If a player successfully completes 3 identical or 5 different potions, then they take a skill token.
  Skill tokens are worth victory points.
• Use potion: A player can use completed potions at any time in their turn, even straight after completing it.
  Potions have various different effects, such as removing or taking certain ingredients from the tracks on the dispenser or stealing another player's ingredients from their flask.
• Take help token: At any time, a player may choose to take a help token, this allows them to take an ingredient from one of the tracks, it does not trigger a potion explosion though.
  Additionally, help tokens deduct from a player's victory point total at the end of the game.

Once a player's turn has ended; if they have completed any potions, then they now take new potion tiles from one of the 5 potion stacks to ensure they have 2 potions at the start of their next turn.
Play continues until the endgame is triggered

Endgame
The game's stack of skill tokens are also used as a countdown time, once the stack is depleted, the endgame is triggered.
Then the current round is completed, ensuring that all players have had an equal number of turns, skill tokens can still be earned and are drawn from remaining previously unused reserve of tokens.
Then victory points from completed potions are scored as are skill tokens, finally points are deducted for every help token taken.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
When a marble is removed from a track, there's a satisfying little clink sound when the other marbles hit one below that's down to the use of proper marbles instead as plastic components. The designers and publishers have put thought into the look and feel of the game, it shows and adds too the game.

There's a degree of luck when playing Potion Explosion. Sometimes how the chips - or in this marbles fall can have a big influence on a player's turn and how many marbles they get to collect in a turn.
A player draws a single marble from the dispenser in their turn, but really they should always be aiming to raw as many as possible because the game is essentially a race between players to complete potions. Potions can be used to facilitate this and despite feeling counter-intuitive to use, so can help tokens. Being able to remove a marble before drawing one can sometimes turn getting a single marble into triggering a chain reaction.
Players must also be able to adapt to constant changes in the dispenser, there's no point in planning your move until it's your turn. Every time a marble is drawn it will figuratively change the landscape, sometimes dramatically. Keeping your fingers crossed, hoping that no one spots a combo you've seen probably isn't the best of strategies.

Additionally, when a player takes a new potion, they're faced with a choice, do they go for the highest scoring potion, or go for a potion that works towards completing a set, or a potion with specific ability?
Players need to pay attention to the spread of colours of their current uncompleted potion and any new potion they take, repetition of colours between potions can slow a player down. It can be irritating when you draw a handful of marbles in a colour you can't use.

All in all, this gives Potion Explosion a subtle depth that belies it's simplicity and seemingly gimmicky mechanic. Winning requires players recognise when it's best to use potions or exploit the help tokens in order to most efficiently accumulate ingredients, which then in order means that players must recognise which new potions to acquire.
Ultimately players always have meaningful decisions to make and that makes it an engaging game.

March 28th 2021

It was Sunday and time for some online board games using Board Game Arena.
You can read my thoughts about it here.

24th March 2021

The final game of Wednesday board game night on Board Game Arena was Love Letter.
Read my blog about it here.

24th March 2021

Board gaming night continued using Board Game Arena.

The next game of the evening was Sushi Go!, read my blog about it here.

24th March 2021

It's a Wednesday evening and I'm logged into Zoom and Board Game Arena on my PC.

It was time for a game that spanned the ages and the creation of massive monuments and the civilisations they represented. Luckily, it doesn't take that long to play 7 Wonders!

Caveat: We played the game online but have previously played the physical copy. Photos were taken for this blog post.

What's in a game?
​The purpose of the game is for each player to create their own civilisation through the construction of various types of buildings and ultimately create one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.
7 Wonders is card game played over 3 sets of rounds (or ages). Each age has its own set of cards which are used. There are numerous types of cards, some of these types can be more or less common in different ages.

• Cards: All the different cards share some common elements, such as cost which can be in resources, money or even free. Each card also has its name along its left hand edge (This can be very important in later ages.). Cards also show in small writing what cards they chain with.
  Resource cards: These brown cards represent raw resources such as wood, stone and so on that are foundations of your civilisation. They only appear in ages 1 & 2.
  Goods cards: These are manufactured goods such as cloth or glass, they are important in the construction of advanced buildings for your civilisation. These cards are grey coloured. Like resource cards, these do not appear in age 3.
  Civic buildings: Blue cards are civic buildings such as baths, aqueducts, temples and palaces. Civic buildings score victory points as displayed on each card.
  Science buildings: This is where the games set collecting element comes into play. There are 3 different scientific symbols and collecting a set of all 3 scores victory points but victory points can also be scored by collecting sets of the same kind, 2-of-a-kind, 3-of-a-kind and so on for all 3 symbols. Green is used to represent scientific cards.
  Commercial buildings: These yellow cards represent businesses that allow the player to gain additional resources, goods or money in various manners, sometimes they also allow the player to accumulate victory points.
  Military buildings: Guard towers, archery ranges and training grounds and the like are all red military cards. Unsurprisingly, they increase a civilisation's military strength by 1-3 points. There is no direct combat between different players in 7 Wonders, but there is automatic conflict between neighbouring civilisations at the end of each age.
  Guild cards: These purple cards only appear in age 3, they sort of combine the mechanics of commercial buildings with the scoring of civic buildings.
• Wonder cards: These are not used during play but can be used to randomly determine which wonder board (See below.) each player gets and whether the A or B side is used.
• Wonder boards: As you would expect, there a 7 wonder boards, one for each ancient wonder. Each board is slightly different and also have an A and B side for more variation and complexity but all contain a resource or good they manufacture for the controlling player.
  Nearly all the wonder boards have 3 spaces (One board has 4 and another 2!) at the bottom. When these spaces are filled, they give the controlling player victory points or a special once only or ongoing bonus.
• Conflict tokens: These tokens are valued at +1, +3, +5 or -1 and they modify victory points.
• Coins: Standard currency, comes in 1s or 3s.

The cards, tokens and coins are of the usual quality you'd expect, the wonder boards are made of fairly thick grey board and feel sturdy.
The text and icons are all mostly clear (I tended to confuse stone and ore icons, because the ore icon looks like a pile of stone to me.), the symbology used for special rules on cards is also generally clear, the rulebook does a good job on clarifying these in cases of confusion.
I also like how the layout allows cards to be more or less stacked while still displaying pertinent information.
In terms of art quality, the wonder boards are quite large and very nicely decorated in eye-catching illustrations of the 7 titular wonders. Art on the cards are of a similar quality but obviously on a smaller scale.

How's it play?
Setup
7 Wonders is a 3-7 player game but also contains some special rules to allow 2 player games. This blog post talks about the normal 3-7 player game.

• Shuffle the wonder cards and deal 1 face down to each player, after this each player flips their card, revealing which wonder board they take and the card's orientation will display whether to use the A or B side.
• 3 decks must be constructed for each of the 3 ages. Deck size is dependant on the number of players and each will consist of 21-49 cards. Cards display which game size they are suitable for. Finally 5-9 of the 10 available guild cards are added to the age 3 deck.
  These 3 decks are shuffled.
• Deal all of the age 1 cards face-down to all players, each player should now have 7 cards.
• Give all players 3 currency.

And we're ready to play.

On to play
Each player in 7 Wonders is neighboured by a player to their left and right; why this is important will be explained below.
​Each player takes a card from their hand and plays face down in front of them, then they pass the remaining cards clockwise to the next player, the direction of play alternates between rounds.
Once every player has chosen a card, all player then simultaneously reveal their card, plays it and executes one of the 3 actions below.

• Construct building: The most common action, put the chosen card into play, it may be a resource/good or a building, but the rules are identical. Each card has a cost of some sort shown in top left corner. This may be a combination of the following factors below.
  Free: Some cards have to cost and are free to play.
  Chain: If a building name is displayed next to a card's cost and that player has that named building already built in their game area, then the building cost of the currently played card is reduced to zero.
  Money: Players will have to spend money to construct this building.
  Resources/goods: Some cards will require a single or mixture of resources and goods to build. The player must have cards already in their play area that display the relevant resources or goods they need. Thus if building requires 2 wood to construct, the player must have 2 cards in their playing area showing a wood each, or a card with 2 wood symbols, the symbols on wonder boards contribute to this.
  This also where your neighbours matter. A player can also use the resources and goods of one or both of their neighbours, they have to pay for it though; 2 coins for each used. This is unaffected by how a neighbour is using their own resources and goods, also the neighbour cannot refuse to sell resources - after all, money is money!
• Build their wonder: Wonders are built in stages, typically 3 stages. All wonders are built in a linear fashion from left to right.
  Cost: Each stage of a wonder will have a cost similar to constructing a building.
  Place card: Finally, when a stage has been paid for, it is built. The player takes they card they chose earlier and places it face-down underneath the space on the wonder board they just built, never revealing what card was used. Thus, building part of a wonder replaces the normal build card action.
• Gain money: A player may discard the card they chose for 3 currency, this card is always discarded face-down and is permanently out of the game. I guess players do this if they're really desperate for funds.

Overall
​I'm going to nit-pick a couple of things about 7 Wonders.
Set up feels a little long for a game that's quite short, having to sift through all 3 decks at the game start feels irritating, probably because there's 3 decks to construct instead of 1 and if the player count changes between games, then all 3 decks will need to be rebalanced.
The game is quite involved and perhaps a little too complicated for its expected playtime. I found myself frequently forgetting the rule about chaining buildings
Scoring is convoluted, specifically scoring the scientific cards where each symbol will scored twice. I wouldn't be surprised that more time was spent making sure this was correct than the rest of the scoring.

Like other drafting games of this style, early in the game players will struggle to decide what's going to be important to them or not, but by looking at their wonder board, players will see what they need to build their wonder and what benefits it gives them as some guidance.
One interesting feature about 7 Wonders is how players can pay to utilise their neighbours resources and goods and of course, players will want to keep and eye on their neighbours' military forces. It's a nice little spin that adds to the game.
​Since there are 7 ways to score points, players will have a lot of options on which strategy to pursue.
For example, civic buildings give a lot of victory points, but nothing else.
Military strength can score a lot of points (and cost your neighbours a few), but only if you dominate, getting caught in a war of escalation can be distracting and costly.

Quibbles aside, 7 Wonders is a straightforward game to learn that has a quick turnaround and is a fun game to play, players will want to strategize, but the luck of the draw means they will need to adapt to circumstances.
The game always provides players with meaningful choices, which is what you want.

22nd March 2021

Monday night gaming on Board Game Arena continues with the final game of the evening; Sushi Go!

Like sushi? Like conveyor belts? Then you'll like this.... probably!

Caveat: This was played online, but has also been played with the physical game, photos are from my copy.

What's in a game?
Sushi Go! comprises of a single deck of 108 cards with 8 different types of cards. 

• Chopsticks: Chopstick cards allow a player to sacrifice their action in their current turn to have 2 actions in a later turn. Chopsticks are worth 0 points.
• Dumplings: This is a set of cards, the more dumpling cards a player collects, the more points they score at the end of the round
• Maki rolls: Whoever has the most make rolls at the end of the round scores, 2nd place scores half as many points. Maki roll cards each contain 1-3 maki rolls.
• Nigiri: There are egg, salmon and squid nigiri cards, they score 1, 2 or 3 points respectively.
• Puddings: These cards are only ever scored once, they don't score at the end of any of the rounds, instead they are retained between rounds and are scored at the end of the game (Being puddings obviously!). The player with the most puddings scores points, the player with the least or no puddings loses points! Everyone else in between gets 0.
• Sashimi: This is another set, collect 3 sashimi cards to score points, otherwise 0 points are scored.
• Tempura: Another set, collect 2 tempura  to score points.
• Wasabi: On its own, a wasabi card is worthless when played. However, if during a later turn a player puts down a nigiri card, it must go on the wasabi card and the nigiri card's value is then tripled.

There's not much that can be said about the components, it's a deck of standard quality cards.
The art is clear, distinct and colourful with appropriately themed cheerful faces on all the foods.
My copy came in a little steel tin.
The only component that the game is lacking are scoring counters, as it stands, scores at the end of each round need to be recorded somehow on scrap paper or a phone or something. On the other hand, adding scoring tokens would increase the game's size, making it less of a neat compact little package, so your mileage may vary.

How's it play?
Set up
Shuffle and deal a hand of cards face-down to each player, the hand size depends on the number of players, the remaining cards form a draw deck for later rounds, then the game is ready to begin.

On to play

• Each player looks at their hand and plays one card face-down in front of them. Then they pass the remaining cards, still face-down, to their left (Or possibly right, if using optional rules.).
• Then, simultaneously, all players reveal their chosen card.
• All players pick up the cards passed to them, a new turn starts and the two steps above are repeated.
• Play continues until all cards have been played. Then, except for the pudding cards, all cards are scored. The scored cards are all discarded and not shuffled into the draw deck.
• A new round begins, new hands are dealt to the players and the steps above are repeated.
• Play continues for a total of 3 rounds.

Endgame
Once the 3rd round is over and scored, the puddings are scored.
Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
As you can see from the short length of this blog post, Sushi Go!'s rules are simple, accessible and easy to learn. The game's depth comes not from rules complexity but from decisions available to each player, which is great game design in my opinion.
The game also fits the theme of having food going round on a conveyor belt remarkably well.

Sushi Go! constantly forces players to make decisions and some of these decisions will be gambles, based on the hope that another right card will come around further along the game.
Players will also get the right card at the right time on random occasion, but this isn't perceived as a no-brainer, they're seen as spots of good luck to be exploited.
​
Canny players will try to memorise hands that get passed along, they might also spend time looking at what cards others have put down, trying to predict their decisions. If 2 players look like they're trying to collect the same set of cards, then they're going to be a premium and those players aren't going to pass those cards on.
Then there's puddings, the wrinkle in the rules that produces the pudding war of escalation that forces players to think about what cards might be played in the future rounds and play cards just to avoid losing points!

It makes Sushi Go! a blend of calculation and unpredictability. There is no winning strategy, players must adapt to not only the cards dealt to all players but other player's strategies

Sushi Go! comes in compact package, is easy to learn, quick to set up and play and enjoyable experience. A great filler game.

22nd March 2021

It's Monday evening and I'm logged into Zoom and Board Game Arena.

The next game of the evening is Celestia.
You can read my thoughts about it here.

22nd March 2021

It's a Monday evening and I'm logged into Zoom and Board Game Arena on my PC.

We started with a game of Love Letter.

You can see what I wrote about Love Letter here.

Addendum
The version of Love Letter that we played online had extra cards to accommodate up to 8 players. This adds new cards with new abilities and most significantly it adds card with new ways to score points. This changes the game, is this an improvement? In my opinion; no.

When Love Letter was a 4 player game with a 16 card deck, it was a tightly focused experience, elegant and well balanced.

With the 5-8 player variant a 32 card deck is used. Immediately it makes it trickier to guess who is holding what card because more cards are in play.
The additional 16 cards added are not just duplicates of the original 16, instead they add new abilities, these new abilities feel a little gimmicky and don't add anything to the game.
Most significantly, they add extra ways to score points. I know why this was added, in a 8 player game where someone needs to get 4 points, it could take a long time. Again I felt it was a detraction.
For example: We played a game where James was at 3 points and no one else was higher than 2 points. With his second card, James announced he had won the game, because if he won the round, he got his 4th point, the card he had just played awards him a point if he is knocked out of the round. I suppose theoretically there was a chance that James might've reached the end without being knocked out and lost when comparing card values.
Even so, it was a long shot and essentially ended the game there, making the remainder of the round almost futile; something I've never seen in Love Letter before.

I applaud the intention of wanting to add more players to a game, but in this case it takes a concise game and bloats its rules and play times. It felt like it was trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, like trying to put a square peg into an octagonal hole.

Better to have 2 games with 2 16 card decks in my opinion.

21st March 2021

Sunday afternoon gaming continues; I'm logged on to Board Game Arena and Zoom, the second game of the day is Tokaido.

I know several people who have visited Japan but to my knowledge none of them had made the 500km trip along the Tokaido route.
If you like the idea of taking a hike to enjoy hot springs or staying at an inn or looking at beautiful scenery, then maybe this is the game for you.

Caveat: We played a digital version of this game, we have also played the physical version previously.

What's in a game?

• Game board: A faint map of Japan is shown on this very wide game board, it also depicts The Tokaido Road as a line that threads its way east/west along the coast.
  From this line there are many branching lines that lead to symbols that represent what are essentially tourist traps that players can visit, each branching line also displays 1 or 2 dots. Dots determine how many players may stop at a particular location at any given time.
  Apart from the starting inn, there are a further 4 inns along the road that sort of divide the game up into 4 rounds.
  Finally the board has spaces for the 7 decks of cards used in Tokaido.
• Cards: Tokaido uses a lot of cards, mostly for the sets that players will be collecting.
  Souvenir card: When a player stops at a village, they will have the option to buy souvenir cards. There are 4 different sets to collect and each set can have up to 4 cards in it.
  Encounter cards: Players may stop at random encounters along their journey, this means drawing an encounter card and following it instructions.
  Hot spring cards: Unsurprisingly, these cards are collected by visiting hot springs, each card is worth either 2 or 3 points.
  Meal cards: When a player reaches an inn, they will have the option of purchasing a meal which will be worth victory points.
  Sea, Mountain & Field panorama cards: These 3 sets of cards form 3 wide vistas of the relevant terrain type. As you collect the cards for a set in numeric sequence, the vistas widen until the set is completed. 3 cards for the fields, 4 for the mountains & 5 for the oceans.
  That's not all!
  Achievement cards: Players earn additional victory points for various achievements
• Meeples: Your standard wooden player meeples that come in a variety of colours.
• Coins: Standard quality card chits themed to look like Japanese coins.
• Character tiles: Each player is randomly given a character tiles that grants them some unique benefit or bonus action.

All of the components are of a reasonable standard quality. Artwork and the art direction is suitably stylised with a Japanese theme, colourful and looks good. The panoramas in particular look very nice.
Art on the board looks quite minimalistic with white as the dominant colour, consequently the Tokaido route draws the eye's attention. However, the symbols used to represent the different destinations along the route are quite small and look samey despite being distinctly coloured from each other. It was something found to occur on both the physical and online version. This is only a minor gripe.

How's it play?
Setup
Each player is given a meeple and a randomly determined character tile, the 7 decks are prepared and placed on to their allotted spaces on the game board. The starting order is determined at the first inn, then money is then given to players according to the starting order.

On to play
Game play is very simple to understand, the purpose of Tokaido is to travel to the eastern end of the road, having the most pleasant journey, this is done by stopping at the various locations along the way.

• Tokaido does not have a round order per se; instead the player at the 'back' (and the furthest from the end destination) is always the active player, if a player is several spaces behind the other players, it is possible that they can have several turns in a row. At the start of the game the fist player is actually at the back.
• The active player decides how far they want to move their meeple along the Tokaido road, up to and including the next inn stop. They may choose to skip branches and other players.
  They can stop at any open available space along one of the branching routes, if a branch has all of its spots already taken, then the active player cannot stop there. 
• Once the player stops, they carry out the action associated with the type of location they stopped at (See below for more info.).
• Play then continues with the player in last place.

Now we know how to move across the board and stop at locations, but what do those locations do?

• Encounters: When a player stops at a encounter location. they draw an encounter card, this will give the player some sort of benefit.
• Farms: Stopping at a farm earns the active player 3 coins, I guess those farms are wealthier than they look!
• Hot springs: Stopping at a hot spring allows the active player to draw a hot spring card, this immediately score them 2 or 3 points.
• Panoramas: There are 3 types of panorama locations, field, mountain & sea. 
  Panorama cards are not randomly drawn. When the active player stops at a one, they take a panorama card of that particular type. All panorama cards are numbered and the player take the lowest numbered car that they do not already posses, thus, the first time they stop at a particular panorama they always take a '1' card, followed by a '2' and so on until they complete a panorama. Players immediately score points equal to the number on the card they just played.
• Temples: A player who stops at a temple can donate 1-3 coins to the temple for an equivalent amount of victory points that are immediately scored.
• Villages: Upon entering a village location, the active player draws a number of souvenir cards, then they can buy any number of them (Provided they have the funds.), remaining cards are put at the bottom of the souvenir deck. Souvenir cards are put into sets and are scored at end of the game.
• Inns: Including the last inn, there are 4 inns that all players must stop at during their journey. The first player at an inn reveals a number of meal cards and can choose to buy one, the remaining are left available for following players to purchase. Thus the early players have the best choice.
  Meal cards cost 1-3 coins and always immediately score 6 points. You may be wondering why the cost of buying meal cards vary when the victory points they confer is always 6? This is explained below.
  When all the players have arrived at the inn and have purchased a meal card (Or not.), then the next leg of the journey can commence. The player who came in last is still considered behind the other players and goes first and so on.

Endgame
Play continues until all players have reached the last inn.
Souvenir sets are now scored.
Then achievements are scored. There are achievements for completing panoramas first, having the most encounters, donating the most money to temples and so on. One achievement earns victory points for spending the most on meals at inns - which explains the varying costs for meals.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Tokaido is a fairly straightforward game to play, on the surface the game gives players a simple decision to make - where to stop and what to collect? It's a little more involved though, the question is; how much do you want to visit a certain spot?
As the active player, someone can choose to move their meeple as far as they need to in order to reach a specific spot, however, moving too far means that a player will end up sitting around as other players get multiple turns. Conversely, moving too slowly risks locations being filled with other players. It feels like quite a balancing act.
Generally we found that there's a basic strategy of moving as little as possible in an attempt to maximise the number of turns that are available and just collect what you can.
The games other balancing act is money; knowing when to keep money and knowing when to spend it is important since spending money can earn victory points and it needs to be done as efficiently as possible.

There's minimal player interaction here and generally player's can't interfere with each other. A canny player can try and predict where other players are looking to go (All cards are kept face-up.) and try to get there first but it mostly it hardly seems worth it.

All of this makes Tokaido a gentle, laid back game to play, it sort of fits the theme of talking a walking holiday.
Players used to heavier games may find that they feel like nothing is happening during the game. This may be partially down to playing online.
The online version doesn't feel as good as the physical one. Being able to collect and build panoramas or complete souvenir sets with physical components feels a lot better than when they're collected in the online version. It's a small sense of achievement but a sense of achievement nonetheless.

If you want a light and chilled game to play though, you can do worse than Tokaido.