Shogun No Katana is live (Japanese sword crafting)
Update: Shogun No Katana is live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 23 days. You may back either the standard or the Deluxe edition.
Our preview post below was published on October 25.
Shogun No Katana is a 1-4 player worker placement and resource management game in which you forge katanas in feudal Japan. It will launch on Kickstarter on October 27.
In Shogun No Katana, you play as a master swordsmith. The game takes place over 4 rounds. On each turn, you will place workers and monks in various locations on the board and take the associated actions. Monks reside at the temple. To take a monk, you must make an offering to the temple and then use the monk as one of your workers (he gains extra benefits when used). The Four Houses of the Daimyos is where the Daimyos reside. They commission the swords, so when you send a worker there, you first place a sword tile in your Forge board and then receive a certain amount of coins. In the Market you buy resources required for forging the swords.
The Forge board is where you will do the forging. When a sword tile is placed in the forge, it must be placed in the leftmost space of the row that matches the resource of the tile. These resources are lacquer, wood, steel, and stingray leather. A sword moves one space each time a resource is added to it. By placing a worker in the forge, you move a whole row or column of the swords you have there.
When you visit the Academy, you learn how to decorate the katana. You may also send members of your family to the Palace to ask the Shogun for favours. When a sword is ready, you can deliver it by calculating its value in points and receive rewards. If you are proficient in sword making, you can also try crafting a katana for the Shogun. At the end of the fourth round, you proceed to scoring, and the best swordsmith wins. Rules for solo play haven't been made available yet.