Everything Is Bitoku (Jeremy’s Song)
There is a long running gag in the Board Boys Podcast discord server. I hope I get this right, but as I recall, the fact that Germán P. Milán‘s Bitoku has an amalgamation of lots of different euro mechanics put together to score points makes it easy to compare other games that the Boys review to Bitoku. (ed. note: kudos to Dave Dugas for coming up with the joke).
Everything is Bitoku, indeed.
I kept the discussion on the periphery for one simple reason: I had never played Bitoku. But this weekend, Mitchell rectified that on our stream. What I discovered about Bitoku was familiar yet surprising, a bit cliché but richly satisfying.
Bitoku is a 2021 release from Devir Games which has a plateau that looks like it was embarrassed to be naked and ran through a mad painter’s library of pastel colors to grab a multi-colored fig leaf. I haven’t seen a board with so many colors on it since 2020’s Godspeed. Honestly, it was disorienting at first, but luckily for me, I had advance notice of what we were playing and watched an excellent tutorial the Ninthrania Youtube channel. By the second round of our game, the colors stopped blinding me to the actions that were available on the board.
Bitoku combines hand management, a mechanic I enjoy, with lots of point salady goals all around the board. Each hand is made up of yōkai cards, that players place on their own tableau which unlocks the resources or actions on the cards. Playing a card also unlocks a die, which gives them even more actions on the board. Placing a die potentially unlocks the ability to cross a river. Crossing a river gives you even more more actions and resources, or lets you move your pilgrims on spiritual journeys or score objectives. Moving your pilgrims….well, I think you get the drift of the game — place cards and dice on your board or on the main board, get stuff, and turn them into points.
Sure, we have seen this in other games, but not always done well or interesting. What I want out of a modern euro is some way of distinguishing itself from the rest of the field, and what I dug about Bitoku the most was the ability to craft your own game experience. It was almost like playing an asymmetrical game but in reverse. We all started out with the same set up, yet by the end of the game, we each had our own powers, our own dice strength, access to buildings on the board that powered up our little engines, and a collection of cards and tokens that gave us even more points at the end.
I saw the weight rating of 3.75 when we were chatting up the game to play at game night, and I can see where the heft comes in — the cascading action chain that you need to follow to get to your end goals in each era is pretty chunky to keep in your brain, plus you have to account during the round for each other player taking your preferred spots or placing dice values on the board that hinder your advance. That being said, the actions themselves are all relatively easy to intuit. By the end of the game, it was easy for me to see where I could have played a lot more efficiently, and to see what Connor did to shoot past Mitchell and me for the win.
I’m glad I finally got to experience Bitoku. I was also pleased that it shared some family traits with one of my favorite Devir games, Bamboo (a hidden gem of a game that Milán also designed that I wish more people discovered), yet felt completely different from Covenant, a game we have recently played and enjoyed. That tells me that Milán is not just a one trick pony, taking six of his favorite mechanics in each game to combine them into a point gathering experience.
Bitoku has depth and beckons to be replayed, and of the two big euro designs that I’ve played from him, this is the one that I would want to play again next. Playing Bitoku also makes me want to try Men-Nefer and Sabika, and I pretty sure that I’m lucky enough that both are available here in Acadiana. Plus, Jeremy has the Bitoku expansion, Resutoran, and I’m intrigued to play that, too. Let’s make it happen, Jeremy!
Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo