A long time ago, China gifted Japan their sacred animal, a Giant Panda, as a symbol of peace. The Japanese Emperor entrusted you with keeping the Panda happy by cultivating a garden to grow the Panda’s favorite bamboo. Takenoko means bamboo sprout in Japanese. The player who grows the most bamboo with the most organized land plots and feeds the Panda wins the game!
Takenoko (2011) is a tile-placement game designed by Antoine Bauza for 2 to 4 players. It is a stunningly visual game where your bamboo garden sprouts in front of your eye. The ravenous panda munches it down. The game comes with the Panda and Gardener figures, 3 colors of stacking bamboo segments, wooden irrigation channel sticks, land plots, improvement tiles, objective cards, player boards, and dice.
This panda has eyes only for the bamboo you grow. He will always be seeking out his favorite bamboo. Meanwhile, the Imperial Gardener, this adorable pre-painted gardener, is trying his best to grow the bamboo back as it gets eaten. He’s got one tough job!
How to Play Takenoko
Place the central water pond tile in the middle of your play area with Panda and Gardener on it. No bamboo can grow on this pond tile; it will be a source of irrigation for your other plot tiles. Shuffle the remaining land plot tiles and place them face down to form a draw pile. Set the green Emporer card aside. Shuffle the remaining cards by category (blue -> plot, red -> gardener, purple -> panda) in three face-down draw piles.
Each player takes a player board, two action chips, and one card of each category. The player board helps identify the weather condition effects and stores your components.
Take turns proceeding clockwise. Two steps are taken in a turn.
Step 1: Determine Weather Conditions (Skip this step in the first round)
Roll the Weather Die and apply the effect:
- Sun – Gain an additional action different from the two regular actions
- Rain – Place a bamboo section on the irrigated plot of your choice. There’s a limit of four sections per plot
- Wind – You may take two identical actions in this round if you wish
- Storm – Place the panda on the plot of your choice and he eats a bamboo section
- Clouds – Choose an improvement chip to be stored or placed on a plot
- Question ? – Your choice of weather condition!
Step 2: Perform Actions and Meet Objectives
Take 2 different actions from the following 5 options:
- Draw 3 plots and choose one, placing the other two back on the top of the deck face down.
Place the chosen plot adjacent on at least one side to the pond tile or adjacent to at least two other non-pond plots already in play. This plot will grow one bamboo shoot of its color if irrigated (see irrigation rules below). - Take an Irrigation channel and use it or store it.
Irrigations start from a corner of the pond tile and form a water pipe network through the garden. An irrigated plot is adjacent to the pond tile, one of its six edges has irrigation, or it has a watershed improvement. When a plot is irrigated for the first time, it will grow a section of bamboo; this can include two plots at once. - Move the Gardener in a straight line in the direction of your choice for any number of plots. He will grow a section of bamboo on that plot plus all adjacent irrigated plots of the same color. He cannot move over empty spaces between plots. The max height of bamboo is 4 sections.
- Move the Panda in a straight line to eat a bamboo section from the plot. Same movement rules as the gardener – move in one direction, over a continuous straight line of plots.
- Draw an Objective Card from one of the three categories and add it to your hand. You can only have a maximum of five cards at any time.
Meeting Objectives
After completing the two actions, if anyone completes a Card Objective, place the card face up. You’ll earn these points at the end of the game, even if the conditions are not met in future gameplays.
- Plot cards – irrigated, adjacent plots in the specific color and position
- Gardener cards – specific color and number of bamboo and improvement
- Panda cards – specific colors of bamboo sections the panda eats
Each card has different scores; score 2 points for the easier objectives up to higher scores for the more challenging objectives.
End of Game Trigger and Scoring
The player who triggers the last round takes the green Emperor card worth 2 points and finishes their turn. The other players take one last turn. The player who earned the most points with their objective cards wins!
Takenoko Bling
Not only does Takenoko come with some of the cutest components, but Tower Rex also offers a wooden insert with one of the most beautiful inserts I’ve ever seen! This holds all the components, including a pagoda garden diorama to hold the miniatures. I painted it, but it also looks fine unpainted.
This piece will hold many components that don’t have a dedicated container. Here is the Tower Rex insert fitting nicely inside the Takenoko box!
More bling
Other additions I purchased were the transparent acrylic water irrigation sticks, which looked more like water to me and brightened up the game. On BoardGameGeekStore, I found these beautiful Alternate Art Takenoko player boards each designed by a different artist.
As for atmosphere “bling”, I had a bamboo forest as a background, playing in my succulent plant room. For sounds, I had Alexa playing zen garden music with sounds of trickling water and zen music.
The publisher Matagot also produced a Takenoko Collector’s Edition with a giant-sized board and components in a wooden box. Sadly, I don’t have this version, but I’m content with my standard size game.
Summary
This game will definitely stay in my collection, it has a lot of eye-candy and popping colors. As the game progresses, it adds dimension as the bamboo grows and the garden expands outwards. The game has some of the cutest components I’ve ever seen. The aesthetics of a bamboo forest and miniatures eating and growing the bamboo feel very immersive.
This image was taken for fun after a game, I added my own panda miniatures. How many pandas can you see?
Takenoko