Board Games in Japan

The Begginings of an Adventure

As I've said before, I've decided to take an independant study class with the goal in mind to learn the language specfic to gaming. Both analogue, board games and card game, and digital, video games and arcade games. This might prove difficult because in a contemporary setting, board games havn't received much attention in Japan. Games like Go, Shogi, and then a variety of Hanafuda card games might have been the extent of what I found. I don't know enough about it to be certain, but yesterday I managed to find some.



So here are three games I found at Aeon Mall. Starting from Right to Left.

Simpei
The first game I found is called Simpei, created by Capcom actually. It is a bit like Go and Tic Tac toe. You place little guys on the board alternating between you and a your opponent. There are twelve pegs where the pieces are placed upright, and nine holes where the pieces are placed upsidedown. If you flank your opponent you can move their piece anywhere on the board, the goal of the game is to get 3 of your guys in a row (all face up or all face down).

After you've placed your four guys, when it's your turn you move a piece already on the board. When you move a piece you have to flip it from right side up to upside down, or vica versa. It's more complex than tic tac toe, not quite as skill based as Go, but it's fun and it's quick.

-Words to Learn From It-
Place
Move
*Sandwich/Flank
Objective
Can do
Cannot do
Player
Pieces

Shogi

While Simpei is a very new game, Shogi is a very old game. I'd say an asian form of chess, but chess originates in India(supposedly), so it's just a different form of chess. I don't know how to play Shogi, yet. I assume the basics, it's a war game. The percentage of games that depict war in some maner is very high, so learning the language of Shogi, may help me if I decide to attempt to describe a game like Stratego or Chess in Japanese. Stratego seems like a simple game to try and translate, and it'd be easy enough to make out of stiff paper and card board.

-Words to Learn From it-
Board
Square/Space
All the terms describing piece movement
Take (a piece)

Uno
So certainly not a new game in anyone's book. I still plan on getting a Hanafuda deck, but I actually don't own Uno, so I figured why not. The uno cards are all picture based with arabic numerals, but the instruction booklet is in japanese. This will be particulalry interesting since it is a translated version of a foreign game. I will need to be very wary of studying Uno, for this reason. I have no idea if the translation is good or not, but it will be very interesting to see what people have attempted to do before me. Plus the instructions will give me a basis of terms which I can check, as opposed to nothing at all. Plus who doesn't love Uno.

-Words to Learn From it-
Draw
Play
Switch
Skip
Deck
Hand