Momiji captures the ephemeral wonder of Japanese autumn in an objective-based card game
Fall guise.
Collect leaves from an imperial garden and trade acorns gathered from picturesque landscapes in Momiji, an upcoming card game from Italian publisher 3 Emme Games.
Momiji places one to four players in the grounds of an ancient Japanese palace and tasks them with collecting autumn leaves falling from the trees and placing them in piles. Leaves can be used to complete specific objectives or traded for acorns that activate new board-wide objectives. Different landscapes give individuals unique abilities, allowing a depth of strategy across multiple games.
Players begin by filling their hand with leaves and placing three distinct landscapes in front of them. The art on these landscapes create a panorama that evokes a painterly version of Imperial Japan. Community piles in the middle of the board provide a start for adding more leaves, and several objectives - such as collecting the most cards of a certain value or leaf type - offer challenges beyond just accruing the most points outright.
Momiji is another reading of ?? or "autumn leaves" and is a popular season for collecting leaves or simply enjoying nature in transformation.
On their turn each player will play leaf cards from their deck and draw more from the central pile, which is meant to evoke the myriad trees in the garden shedding their foliage. Cards can be stacked on top one another to secure points or played adjacent to collect acorns, which are used to add extra objectives to the ones placed at the beginning of play.
Collecting and stacking continues until the last tree has shed its leaves (the deck empties out) or a certain number of stacks have been completed. Players then tabulate their victory points from leaf piles, acorns and objectives, and whoever has the most takes home a win.
The Kickstarter Campaign for Momiji also includes the Ancient Garden expansion, which includes a unique game board, objectives and wooden animal tokens. The base game provides a solitaire mode for solo play and is available to try now on Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia.