- Publisher(s) : Musoka Studi
- Designer(s) : Hiroki Ohba, Anthony Perone, Ryoji Suzuki, Hiraku Tezuka
- Artist(s) : Makoto Takami
- Players : 2–4
- Game duration : 15 - 30 Min
- Weight BGG : 2.29
What's this?
Yami is an original cooperative adventure that cleverly blends traditional trick-taking with polyomino tile placement . With limited communication and a 22-mission open-world campaign, the game offers an evolving adventure.
How do you play?
A mission takes place over a maximum of 7 rounds . To win, players must successfully surround all the Mission tiles before the end of the seventh round.
Each round takes place in four phases :
- Map Determination Decision
- Folding Game
- Selection and placement of the Spirit tile
- Verification of success conditions
The trick-taking game
Each player has a hand of Spirit cards numbered from 1 to 7 in five different colors.
The first player starts by playing a card. The other players must then follow suit if they can. If they have no card of that suit, they can play any card they choose.
The trick is won by the highest-ranking card of the suit led. However, a trump suit can completely change the situation: if a card of the trump suit is played, it wins the trick, regardless of the suit led.
The Decision card changes the trump card
The unique feature of Yami is that the winning card of the trick becomes the Decision card .
It serves two purposes: it determines which Spirit tile the players will take and it also indicates the trump suit for the next trick.
Retrieve the corresponding Spirit tile
Once the trick is finished, the players take the Spirit tile corresponding to the Decision card .
The Spirit cards and tiles are directly linked: each card corresponds to a unique tile bearing the same number and color.
The outcome of the trick, therefore, doesn’t just determine a winner. It primarily determines which tile will be added to the board . This is where the trick-taking game truly merges with tile placement.
Place the Spirit tile
The retrieved tile must then be placed on the board.
Players have some freedom as they can choose its location and orientation, but several constraints must be respected.
Communication is also limited during this phase. Players can discuss tile placement , but cannot reveal information about their hand or intentions.
Circle the Mission tiles
The ultimate goal is to completely surround the Mission tiles .
For a tile to be considered surrounded, all squares directly adjacent to it must be covered by Spirit tiles. Squares that only touch the Mission tile at a corner are not required.
However, some missions add additional constraints. For example, in the first mission, some edges of the Mission tiles have a color and must be covered by a Spirit tile of the same color.
To succeed or to fail
A mission is successful if all Mission tiles are correctly surrounded before the end of the seventh round .
If the players have not managed to fulfill the conditions after seven rounds, the mission is lost.
A campaign that is evolving
Yami doesn’t just play through the same games. Players progress through 22 missions , with additional equipment that is gradually unlocked.
The envelopes in the box contain new Power tiles, while the Path to the Moon gradually introduces disadvantages that accumulate and remain active until the end of the game.
Players can also unlock Power slots and retrieve Power tokens accumulated throughout the adventure. Mission 22 is the final objective of the campaign: its completion will save the kingdom.
Is it good?
Yami offers familiar mechanics like tile placement and trick-taking, but they are rarely combined. This is what makes Yami so original, and in practice, the alchemy between these mechanics works very well.
Here, winning a trick isn’t enough: you have to win the right trick, with the right suit and the right value, to obtain the exact shape you need on the board. This dual approach creates constant dilemmas. The evolving trump system further reinforces this dimension: you have to carefully consider which card you’re going to play so as not to jeopardize your mission, because the choices made on one trick have consequences for the next.
Limited communication is also a real plus in a cooperative game, with missions reminiscent of The Crew or Eternal Deck . You have to try to read the other players’ cards and anticipate their options, as in classic trick-taking games, but with a cooperative dimension that adds real tension to the decisions.
The campaign, with its 22 missions and mystery envelopes that progressively unlock new elements, works well to keep players wanting to continue the adventure. There’s always that curiosity to discover what the game has in store for us and what new rules or constraints will enrich the upcoming missions.
One could, however, criticize Yami for not fully exploiting its narrative. The game remains clearly very abstract, and ultimately, the theme quickly fades into the background.
After discovering the first few rounds and opening the first envelopes, a slight sense of repetition may also be felt. An element of chance is present in the card draws, and certain configurations can make a mission seem particularly difficult, or even impossible, depending on the cards the players hold.
Furthermore, the rulebook and travel journal aren’t necessarily the most intuitive on first reading. Sometimes you need to understand which elements are unlocked, when they should be used, and how they modify the basic rules.
But Yami has some great qualities and offers an original mix of trick-taking game + tile placement , to which is added a cooperative dimension with limited communication.
The game succeeds above all in creating a real complementarity between its mechanics: it is not enough to play your cards well, you also have to get the right tiles to be able to build your board effectively.
If these mechanics appeal to you, Yami is definitely a proposition to watch.
A big thank you to my online partner store, Espritjeu. To discover their catalog, I invite you to visit their website:
Yami Review
Positives
- An original mix between a trick-taking game and tile placement.
- You have to win the right trick, not just win
- Interesting scalable asset system
- Limited communication that strengthens cooperation
- Mystery envelopes that make you want to discover
Negatives
- A rather anecdotal narrative
- Ultimately, a rather abstract game
- A certain repetitiveness followed the initial discoveries.
- Some configurations may seem very difficult depending on the cards received.
- The rulebook and travel journal are not always very intuitive.
