by Simon

Makoto was born soon after I returned from a large game-playing convention where traditionally players enjoyed Tichu, a complex four-player shedding game with a steep learning curve, some protocols that resemble the bidding in bridge, and lots of fans. Tichu is a great game, but can be played only by four players working in two teams. I set out to design something that preserved the fun elements of Tichu and some of its challenges, but which would be more entry-level and playable with a wide range of players, not in teams.

Makoto started life being called "Poison Ivy", the idea being that ivy climbs up walls. Every time I played the game, I had a little earworm of the song "Poison Ivy" by The Coasters playing through my brain. Well...it worked for Ticket to Ride, right?

A quick note on shedding games: I played a lot of The Great Dalmuti when it first came out, and when my kids were young we played Frank's Zoo — two great family shedding games in which the idea is to play combinations in order to get rid of all the cards in your hand. When you do that, you get placed first and players continue to play until one player is left.

Both of those games are also "climbing" games, as is Tichu — games in which you must play a higher combination of cards than the player before you, and in which you have the option to pass and come back in later in the same round of play. The winner of each round gets the important reward of leading the next set of cards and thus can plan their turns. The "bomb" in Tichu, which beats all other combinations, can upset plans in a fun way, as can two special cards. The main difference with Tichu compared to the other two games I mention is that you score the cards you win and, confusingly, one of the special cards can penalize your score. You also lose points if you don't get the bid declared at the beginning.

To sum up, a card game with a less steep learning curve, with cards to win and clever plays to pull off while having fun — this was my target.

Original prototype boxI set about designing a simpler game with an adaptable number of players. My initial "new" idea was that when playing cards on your turn, you could also discard a single card or pick up a set of matching-numbered cards from a central display. Doing this would be too easy by itself, so I added the rule that the card/s you picked up or discarded had to be lower than the card/s you played. (Initially I was going to make it "equal to or lower than" but that meant playing the highest card in the game could allow you to pick up more copies of the same card if they were on the table.)

A second idea was to have not only a decreasing score depending on how late you went out of the game, but also the chance to score exciting cards if you didn't go out early. How is this done? Well, when you are the last player to play in any round, you win all the cards played and put them in your score pile...which gives you additional decisions: Do I bother to play in this round when there are no scoring cards? Do I play a good card or set of cards to win a few points now or save them in case I can win more points later? This playing angst is furthered by having only three cards that score in each set of value 1-16: the 2s, the 5s, and the 10s.

In a further twist, the 2s are worth 20 points, while the 5s and 10s are worth 5 or 10 points respectively. (Values are marked on the cards for ease of play.) With 35 points in each suit of cards, in a four-player game, for example, you play with five suits and have 175 points in play — not counting the bonuses for going out, which range from 50 to 20 points.

Looking back at my design notes from April 2022, I pretty much had the whole game in my first concept, tested it with multiple groups...then more or less forgot about it until I returned to the same game convention in 2023. I randomly got it out to play with six players, and it was a hit, getting played every night as word spread amongst attendees! The result of this was that I got a U.S. publisher, the lovely Sean Brown of Mayfair Games, who soon partnered with HUCH! in Germany, with the terrific and kind Joseph Weidl in the latter company taking the lead on art and publishing. Only my second game contract ever — so exciting!

"Poison Ivy" being played in April 2023 (I'm on the left)
The design challenges left were clear: find a better name for the game and get a theme for the cards. Luckily, these two came together. I had fixed my heart on a Japanese theme since Japan is a much-admired source of many great card games, and I had scoured Japanese words looking for something which resonated. The result was "Makoto", which is a man's name that also means "sincerity".

Next up, HUCH! found the perfect artist in Stefan Sonnberger, who started to produce absolutely stunning artwork for the sixteen cards in the game. The art depicts the voyages of a rōnin, a lone man walking the Komino Kumo, the famous ancient pilgrimage route through the Kiu Peninsula, finding himself, battling his demons, and visiting the tomb of his deceased wife. The images from 1-13 join together in a continuous landscape; the last three cards, which are used at higher player counts, depict his evening pursuits before he sleeps. The 2, 5, and 10 cards have gold in their artwork, and overall the cards trace the rōnin's day from sunrise to sunset. Thank you, Stefan, for your wonderfully talented art!

Image: Thyionius
One final design challenge remained: In the game, as with other shedding games, you often have to pass — sometimes because you can't play and sometimes because you want to bide your time. HUCH! and other playtesters suggested that players would like to do something other than just pass, so (eventually, and after a brainstorming session with Erica Hayes-Bouyouris — thank you, Erica!) we added the idea of the oracle, a set of extra cards that you can "consult" by swapping a card with it when you pass.

Further work was done to refine the cards, card backs, and set-up to make it as easy as possible to adapt the deck to the number of players playing — something that I wanted to do from the outset to ensure a good experience at all player counts. The name of the "bomb" became "Kensei", an honorary term for a Japanese sword master, and the symbol on some of the cards became a sword since you must have one sword to play a Kensei at higher player counts.

Makoto is great fun at all player counts because the deck is designed to be adapted for each number of players. (My personal favorite is six players if the table talk is good.) I'm proud to see it getting a good response when played with two players since it's not easy to find two-player shedding games.

Makoto will be available at SPIEL Essen 25, with a retail release in Europe, the U.S., Japan, and the UK, ideally with other countries soon afterwards. I hope you enjoy it!

Simon Weinberg

Image: Thyionius