Watch “Kano Review - Every Brushstroke Matters,” a board game review for Aberration from BoardGameCo on BoardGameVideo.
Description provided by BoardGameCo on YouTube:
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Channels I Recommend (Not a comprehensive list by any means)
Professor Meg - https://www.instagram.com/professormeg/
EZBoardGames - https://www.youtube.com/@ezbgames
The Board Game Garden - https://www.youtube.com/@TheBoardGameGarden
Room & Board - https://www.youtube.com/@RoomandBoardReviews
Thinker Themer - https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkerThemer
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In Kano, 2 to 4 players compete to create their own Emakimono—traditional Japanese painted handscrolls—by skillfully arranging vibrant paint pots. The game elegantly blends tactical resource management with spatial optimization as players navigate a shared central mat to collect the pigments needed for their masterpieces.
Gameplay Mechanics: Precision and Patience
Each turn, artists must make meaningful choices to fill their scrolls:
Manipulate the Palette: Players may swap adjacent paint pots on the central mat to set up the perfect move.
Pigment Collection: You must take at least one paint pot, but may take several if they are the same color and adjacent in a single row or column.
The Rule of Gravity: When placing paint on your board, pots always "fall" to the lowest available space in a column, requiring careful planning to form specific patterns.
The "Dry Paint" Limit: Artists must be efficient; if you end a turn with more than four visible paint pots on your board, the excess must be converted into "Cloud" tiles, which fill space but score no points.
Achieving Prestige
Once a pattern is formed, players replace their paint pots with beautiful Artwork Tiles. Points are awarded based on the complexity of the creations:
Standard Artworks: Larger pieces earn higher scores, with 3-space artworks yielding 7 points.
Personal Masterpieces: Players hold secret Masterpiece cards worth a significant 12 points each upon completion.
The Shogun’s Demands: Common "Red" and "White" goal sheets provide shifting objectives every game, rewarding those who can adapt their style to meet specific artistic requirements.
The game reaches its climax when one player completely fills their board, triggering a final round of scoring to determine the Master Artist.
BGG Link - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/395834/aberration
TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Introduction
0:05:38 - What I Like
0:07:02 - What I Don't Like
0:14:12 - What I Can See Others Not Liking
0:15:25 - Final Thoughts
0:09:05 - Recommendations
5.0 - My absolutely favorite games, I will rarely if ever turn down an opportunity to play these games.
4.5 - Oh my gosh, the absolute best games...but also I'm not always down to play them. For one reason or another these are just shy of perfect. Whether it's mechanics, length, brain burn whatever.
4.0 - This is where a game becomes recommended. Now I may or may not be in the mood, or even own it, especially considering other games. But a 4 is where we cross from good to great.3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, will often lose out to better games, but there's a part of me that wants to own it/play it more.
3.0 - A good game, I enjoy playing it. But also if I never play it again I'm not losing any sleep over that.
2.5 - Wasn't the biggest fan. Wasn't the worst, but didn't feel like the best use of time. Would prefer not to play again but am willing to given the right circumstances.
2.0 - A game I don't want to play again. I'm not saying it isn't good, I'm saying I don't want to play it again regardless of circumstance.
1.5 - I did not like this game, do not want to play it, and think it's a fairly flawed game.
1.0 - I can't imagine rating a game this poorly ever. It would take something so abysmal I probably didn't get to even play it.
Shelves & Table in this Video by Allplay - https://www.allplay.com/
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