Review: Kamon

Introducción

Develop your strategy while respecting the restrictions of the Kamons! To win, connect two opposite edges of the board, create a loop, or block your opponent while respecting the color or symbol imposed by them.

This is how we are presented with Kamon, a design by Bruno Cathala (Five Tribes, Donuts). First published in 2007 by Jactaba in a French version. In 2020, it was re-released by Cosmoludo in a multilingual edition. Tom Delahaye (Yoxii, Mana) is in charge of the graphic design.

It is not published in Spain, so you will have to resort to the import market (the game is language-independent and the rulebook includes Spanish). It allows for 2-player games, with a suggested minimum age of 8 years and an approximate duration of 15 minutes. The retail price is €26. For this review, a copy of Cosmoludo’s multilingual version was used.

Importante: si ya conoces el juego y/o sólo te interesa mi opinión sobre el mismo, puedes pasar directamente al apartado de Opinión. Los apartados Contenido y Mecánica están destinados especialmente a aquellos que no conocen el juego y prefieren hacerse una idea general de cómo funciona.

Ir a la Opinión Personal

Contenido

Inside a one-piece cardboard box (lid with a magnetic flap), with dimensions of 27×18×4 cm (a medium rectangular box like all those in the Cosmoludo game series), we find the following elements:

• Main Board
• 36 Kamon Tokens (6 different symbols and 6 different colors)
• Blank Token
• 37 Hexagons (wooden):
  • 18 White
  • 18 Black
  • 1 Gold
• Rulebook

Mecánica

Kamon is an abstract game for two players where the goal is to interconnect tokens or block your opponent on a hexagonal board. At the beginning of the game, the 36 Kamon tokens (which combine six different colors and six different symbols) and one neutral blank token that cannot be used are randomly distributed. The player with the black pieces starts the game by placing one on the edge of the board (except for the corners) and marking their position with a gold hexagon. From that moment on, players alternate turns under the following restriction: the active player must place one of their hexagons on a free space that shares either the same color or the same symbol indicated by the gold marker that their opponent left on the previous move, moving said gold marker to the newly placed hexagon at the end of their action. The game ends immediately in favor of the player who manages to first meet one of the three victory conditions: connecting two opposite edges of the board of the same color through a continuous chain of their pieces, creating a closed loop that encloses at least one empty space or an opponent’s hexagon, or completely blocking the opponent, leaving them with no legal moves available.

Conceptos Básicos

Let’s start with the Main Board, which features a total of 37 spaces with holes in its surface. These holes hold the different components that define the characteristics of each space during setup. It represents the game map on which players will interact alternately, limiting moves according to the edge spaces and the spatial restrictions that are activated throughout the course of the game.

Regarding the Kamon Tokens, they are a set of 36 circular pieces showing six different symbols (butterfly, fish, bird, fan, mountain, and gate) divided into six different colors, additionally including a blank token that acts as a neutral and unusable space. These tokens are randomly fitted into the holes of the board at the beginning of the game. Their main function is to determine the identity of each space, serving as the restriction mechanism that dictates exactly where the opponent can or cannot play on their next turn based on the symbol or color of the last activated token.

Let’s continue with the players’ Hexagons. These pieces are divided into two sets, a white group and a black group, so that each participant has their own identifying color. These pieces are used to be placed directly onto the spaces of the main board and claim control of them. Through their placement and accumulation on the board, players will try to meet the final conditions of the game, either by connecting opposite edges (of the same color), enclosing spaces to form a continuous chain, or completely limiting the opponent’s placement options.

Lastly, we have the Gold Hexagon. This is a single hexagon-shaped piece with a bright yellow color that stands out visually from the rest of the board components. Its purpose is to serve as an immediate reference marker or indicator for the players. After making a move, the active player must place this marker over the hexagon of their color they have just played, clearly showing the opponent the specific color or symbol restrictions that they must mandatory respect on their next turn.

That is enough to get us started.

Preparación de la Partida

• The board is placed in the center between both players.
• Each player chooses a color and takes the 18 corresponding hexagons.
• The Kamon tokens and the blank token are shuffled randomly and inserted into the holes in the center of each space on the board.
• The gold hexagon is set aside to be used during the game.
• The starting player is chosen randomly, and they will play with the black hexagons.

Now we can begin!

Desarrollo de la Partida

A game of Kamon takes place over a maximum number of 18 turns per player, alternating between them, starting with the player controlling the black hexagons, until one of the conditions triggering the end of the game is met.

The black player starts the game by placing one of their hexagons on any of the spaces on the edge of the board (the striped spaces), with the sole exception of the six two-colored corners of the board, placing the gold hexagon on top of the newly placed hexagon. After this, it would be the opponent’s turn.

On each subsequent turn, the active player must carry out the following steps:

• Place a Hexagon of their color. The player places one of their hexagons on a free space on the board whose color or symbol matches the color or symbol of the space where the gold hexagon is located. No hexagon can be placed on the blank token, which remains static and cannot be used throughout the game.
• Place the Gold Hexagon. After making their move, the active player must place the gold hexagon on top of the piece they have just played.

After this, the turn passes to the opponent.

Fin de la Partida

The game ends immediately if one of the three victory conditions is met:

• A player wins immediately if they manage to connect two opposite edges of the board that are of the same color (green to green, blue to blue, or yellow to yellow) through a chain of hexagons of their own color.
• A player wins the game if they manage to create a loop-like structure as a continuous chain with the hexagons of their color, such that it encloses at least one empty space and/or an opponent’s hexagon inside.
• A player automatically claims victory if, on their turn, the opponent cannot make any valid move because there are no tokens available on the board that match the symbol or color required by the position of the gold hexagon.

If both players manage to place their 18 hexagons on the board without either of them achieving any of the three victory conditions described above, the game ends in a tie.

Opinión Personal

If I had to say which board game designer born in France is my favorite, I think I would always end up choosing good old Bruno Cathala. First, because I find his work system amazing, continuously collaborating with various authors to maintain an annual production pace that is hard to match.

And second, because it shows that, just like yours truly, he is an abstract game lover. The truth is, there are few authors on the international gaming scene who pay attention to one of my favorite genres. Good old Bruno is one of them, with sensational designs like the magnificent Donuts (here is its tocho-review).

Today we are going to analyze another abstract game designed by Cathala, this Kamon. Let me remind you that, for me, an abstract game is one that meets three conditions: perfect information, absence of random elements, and a high level of interaction between players because they compete to position themselves on a common board. The presence of a theme, whether more or less well-integrated, is completely irrelevant.

Kamon, moreover, is one of those abstract games that I call “conditional turn” games because the active player’s options will be narrowed down to a small selection due to the action just resolved by their opponent, as happens in designs like Tintas, Kamisado (here is its tocho-review), or Donuts itself (it is clear that Cathala likes this system).

The goal of the players is to try to achieve victory directly by meeting one of two possible goals. On one hand, connecting two spaces on the periphery of the board that are on opposite sides (it is a hexagonal board, so there are three pairs of sides to try to connect) through an uninterrupted path of spaces occupied by the player. On the other hand, managing to form a closed path of spaces occupied with the player’s pieces that enclose at least one space, whether empty or controlled by the opponent.

On each turn, the active player must place one of their hexagonal markers on an empty space to claim it in pursuit of achieving one of the two goals I just explained. But, as I have already told you, it is a game of conditional action. Thus, the active player can only claim a space that shares one of the two characteristics it shows with the space their opponent has just claimed.

This means that, on each turn, the active player must choose a space whose inner token shows the same color or the same symbol as the space where the gold hexagonal marker is located, and then place said marker on top of the one they have just deployed to set the restriction for their opponent. And that’s all there is to it.

If you have read reviews of any of these games with conditional movement, you will already know that it is a type of abstract game that I find very satisfying. The reason? Because it simplifies the decision tree, since the options available each turn are few and, in this case moreover, dwindling as the turns go by.

And second, because it allows for simple calculation by mentally projecting the options that the rival will have available. In the first few turns, it might not be as important because with each move there are usually plenty of possibilities. But, as the board gets tighter, evaluating which space might be more interesting for the opponent on their next turn is easier, so we can also calculate the restrictions that they will probably apply to us on our next turn.

When you combine this with the back-and-forth that takes place on the board, trying to reach one of the two victory conditions and, in parallel, trying to cut off the opponent’s options, we find ourselves with an agile and effective abstract game, with a level of tension that increases as the number of available spaces shrinks.

The fact that the spaces on the main board are set up randomly at the start of each game is a major point in its favor, as it prevents the proliferation of fixed patterns and forces players to evaluate the situation in every match, which increases variability, and therefore replayability—which is already high thanks to the level of interaction inherent to abstract games.

It is true that one might miss an element that raises this level of interaction even further, since once a player has claimed a space, it will remain under their control until the end of the game. I would have liked some way to steal spaces from the opponent, but this could lengthen games indefinitely. That is why Donuts seems to me a better design, as it achieves this without penalizing the game length.

Let’s move on to the production. Cosmoludo offers us finishes similar to their other products, with wooden elements that, while not very dense, are large and very functional. However, the cardboard shows a rather poor pressing and thickness, which could be a problem in the long run as you constantly have to fit the pieces back into the board at the beginning of each game—though this will be a delight for those who enjoy unpunching games. The rulebook is well-structured and leaves no room for doubt. And the symbols themed around Japanese culture are easy to identify.

And let’s wrap this up. Kamon is an elegant design that relies on a conditional turn system to shape an abstract game with simple rules but a heavy tactical burden. The need to anticipate the opponent’s movements to narrow down their choices, along with the constant tension to block their paths to victory, allows players to enjoy very dynamic games where the decision tree is absorbed with tremendous fluidity. Although it lacks that extra bit of mean streak that would allow reversing control of spaces at key moments, its agile pace and the constant making of weighty decisions make it a very appealing choice for hardcore fans of positioning and perfect information. For all these reasons, I give it a…