Kabuki is a fun little memory game for 2 - 6 players that you think will be easy until you start playing and then you slowly realise your memory is shocking!
The basic info
Players: 2 - 6
Age: 8+
Time: 20 minutes
What do you get in this fun little box?
In this box you get;
50 Mask cards
4 Character cards
24 Victory Point (VP) tokens
1 rule book
Yep that is everything! Not a lot to this game!
How do you set up the game?
Without a doubt the set up for this game is beyond complex..... for a single cell organism. It is very simple just follow these steps:
1 - Place the 4 character cards on the table in a square shape leaving space in the middle
2 - Shuffle the mask cards and put them in the middle
3 - Give each player VP tokens;
2 to 4 players 5 each
5 to 6 players 4 each
And we are done.
How do I win?
There are two ways to end the round;
a) All the mask cards are played
b) 1 player takes all the VP tokens
Once the round ends the player with the most VP tokens wins this round and there are 3 rounds to play, the player who wins the most rounds is the winner! If it is a tie play until 1 player wins the most rounds! That is how simple it is.
How do you play this game?
This game is very easy to learn and play on your turn you must do the following;
Take a mask card from the deck
Place the mask on a character pile
That is all you do on your turn, then the next player takes their turn.
However on another players turn you can say stop after they have placed a mask if you believe that the pile already contains that mask.
If you do yell stop, you move the top mask aside so you know which one you are looking for, you then search through that pile for the same mask, every mask you find that is the same in that pile you take 1 VP token from the player who placed the mask.
If you yelled stop and no matching masks were in that pile you must give that player 1 of your VP tokens.
The idea of the game is to keep track of which pile contains which masks, to make sure you do not put the same mask in the same pile as another and catch out the other players when they do this. Seems very easy but after a few turns it becomes a nightmare! But a fun one!
Final Thoughts
This game is not going to have you playing for hours, it is not going to have you thinking about strategies while you are not playing it, there is so much that this game is not going to do.
Then again it is not meant to, it is a fun little game that is designed to be learnt in minutes and played within a short time frame.
We at first thought it was a little dull but after a few turns and really getting into the game we found ourselves having fun and we all said the same score.
Would I recommend this game? Yes, I would, it is nothing to take serious, it is great for in between games and it is fun! There is nothing more satisfying when someone is saying that mask is in that piler and you know 100% it's not and then you are wrong haha
Give this game a chance and I think you will enjoy it. 6/10
