Designers: Eduardo Baraf (Herbaceous, Lift Off! Get me off this Planet!, Sunset Over Water), Scott Caputo (Kachina, Voluspa, Whistle Stop)

Artist: Vincent Dutrait (Broom Service, Dead Man’s Draw, Diplomacy, Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Elysium, Jaipur, Lewis & Clark, Lost Cities, Love Letter, Medici, Mythic Battles: Pantheon, New York 1901, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords, Raptor, Rise of Augustus, Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island, When I Dream, Wyatt Earp)

Publisher: Pencil First Games, LLC (Herbaceous, Lift Off! Get me off this Planet!, Sunset Over Water)

Genre/Mechanisms: set collection, tile placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, The One Hundred Torii is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 2.5x the initial funding goal.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: light

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About: A tile-laying game where players trace their path through a Japanese garden.

How It Works: Each turn players do the following: Get Help (optional), Place a Tile (one out of the two in their hand), Claim Achievements, and Draw a (replacement) Tile. Gameplay and scoring boils down to placing garden tiles, and tracing a path from the landmark on the newly placed tile to the closest similar landmark already on the board, and scoring points for each arch (or Torii) passed through in the process. There are some scoring modifiers and end-game set collection style bonuses; and each of the five characters available to help costs 1-3 tokens, breaking a rule and allowing the player to draw extra tiles, discard a tile, cancel a landmark, play an extra tile the same turn, or play a tile on top of another tile.

Comparisons: Even the Uwe Rosenberg tile-laying games like Patchwork and Cottage Garden have more tactical decisions and are likely more complex than The One Hundred Torii with their additional mechanics; I’d say a closer comparison to Torii’s simplicity might be Lanterns. And perhaps the best examples of abstract games that combine both tile laying with winding patterns, are passtally and the Tsuro series.

What Should I Pledge?:
$39 The One Hundred Torii: includes the base game and the Toku mini-expansion.
$78 Torii & Sprouts Combo: the One Hundred Torii pledge, plus Herbaceous Sprouts and the Green Thumb mini-expansion.
$120 Pencil Light Delight Bundle: the Torii & Sprots pledge, plus Herbaceous and the Flavor Pack mini-expansion, as well as Sunset Over Water and the Nature’s Muse mini-expansion.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
The Toku mini-expansion (soon to be expanded further by stretch goals before the campaign funds) and the Koi mini-expansion are included in the Kickstarter version. These expansions will be available for sale at conventions and on BoardGameGeek, but will not be available at retail, and will not be include in retail versions of the game.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $39 for The One Hundred Torii pledge level plus $8 in shipping for a total of $47.

The One Hundred Torii completes its Kickstarter on Monday, June 10th and tentatively ships in April 2020.