Week 15 (10th - 16th February 2014) - Okko: Furiously Polishing My Katana and Some 'One-Handed Photography'

Sadly, another rather late entry this week - something I aim to rectify shortly. Again, the consequence of this is that this post will be relatively brief, with a view to revisions being made early next week. This week's choice is Okko: Era of the Asagiri. Part of my ongoing 'series' of fantasy-based games, Okko is effectively a miniatures skirmish game (not unlike last week's entry) set in an alternative fantasy version of Japan, and presented in boardgame form (miniatures and terrain being replaced by very nice cardboard standees and geomorphic boards representing the interior of 'typical' Japanese house).

The game pits warbands of demon-hunters against villainous Oni, and involves an interesting mechanic involving dice with elemental symbols on their faces which allow characters to activate special abilities when rolled. That said, I did initially find the game to be a rather pedestrian implementation of IgoUgo mechanics involving fairly standard move/shoot/melee procedures. I

Additionally, this is not strictly speaking a solitaire affair, but due to the fact that no hidden information is typically involved in gameplay, Okko can be soloed fairly easily. Production values are outstanding, but my initial experiences lead me to suspect that there might not be much outside of the lovely look of the game to commend it. That said, I have only played the basic introductory scenario so there may be more to Okko - the only problem being that this initial experience hasn't really suggested that the game may be worth revisiting. On the Gaming Self-Abuse Gauge (tm) this currently scores a 6.5/10.

 

A badly taken photo of the game set-up. The shaky camerawork here is, I imagine, a result of some one-handed photography (if you know what I mean) - presumably in anticipation of some hot three-way action (the scenario displayed being, of course, played with three characters on either side).