The White Castle: Matcha ►►► one of my most anticipated expansions of the year didn't work for us :(

[@thegamesninja3119]

Another idea for a short game... play two rounds instead of 3, for 8 turns. To give it 9 turns, consider rolling 2 dice of each color and give players one dice selection for the final round.

[@rahdo]

not bad. that keeps the new board with 5 additional WP spots just as tight. it does weaken gardeners though as they get one fewer chance to fire off. i guess you could have them fire off for end round (which they don't normally do) but i wonder what that does to their power relative to everything else...

[@omenlostboy]

So if you don't have any White Castle, one can only get Matcha? Thank you for your time. Between White Castle and Yokohama, which should get first?

[@rahdo]

matcha is an expansion to white castle, so you can't play it without also having white castle. and yokohama is great, but i like what castle more :)

[@kells_bells9008]

Could you house rules it and only pick 9? I feel like perhaps the expansions might continue in this way until it’s a massive game that takes up a whole table if you choose. Or you can pick an expansion or two depending on what game length you prefer (or none at all). I would be really interested in this moving forward either way love the game.

[@rahdo]

in theory that would be fine, but i worry about the balance of the game overall. the expansion adds 5 more worker placement spots, and things still feel tight enough if players are drafting 4 dice instead of 3, but if you stick to drafting 3, i think the game would lose some of its tension. so the ideal approach probably needs something a bit more than "just take one fewer turn/round" :) also, i wouldn't be surprised if most folks are fine with the extra 30% length :)

[@LisaSueMarieHuffman]

I see your point but I’m so excited to have more game with more turns!! 😊

[@rahdo]

yup, i suspect most folks might respond this way! :)

[@Majdi.J]

Thank you Rahdo! I was wondering, if the rest of the expansion works, couldn't you choose to only draft three dice per round and that way keep it at 9 dice total?

[@rahdo]

in theory that would be fine, but i worry about the balance of the game overall. the expansion adds 5 more worker placement spots, and things still feel tight enough if players are drafting 4 dice instead of 3, but if you stick to drafting 3, i think the game would lose some of its tension. so the ideal approach probably needs something a bit more than "just take one fewer turn/round" :)

[@Majdi.J]

@@rahdo Understood. Thanks again Rahdo.

[@virgilalighieri7192]

Is there no variant for keeping to just 9 actions? Does that break the expansion? I agree that I wanted it to stay short.

[@rahdo]

in theory that would be fine, but i worry about the balance of the game overall. the expansion adds 5 more worker placement spots, and things still feel tight enough if players are drafting 4 dice instead of 3, but if you stick to drafting 3, i think the game would lose some of its tension. so the ideal approach probably needs something a bit more than "just take one fewer turn/round" :)

[@bijanajamlou5152]

It is not a bug but a feature. Play the short game with 3 bridges or the long with 4.

[@rahdo]

in theory that would be fine, but i worry about the balance of the game overall. the expansion adds 5 more worker placement spots, and things still feel tight enough if players are drafting 4 dice instead of 3, but if you stick to drafting 3, i think the game would lose some of its tension. so the ideal approach probably needs something a bit more than "just take one fewer turn/round" :)

[@thegamesninja3119]

How about randomly removing 1 die per player each round? I personally wanted more actions. If need be, have at least one die per bridge.

[@rahdo]

in theory that would be fine, but i worry about the balance of the game overall. the expansion adds 5 more worker placement spots, and things still feel tight enough if players are drafting 4 dice instead of 3, but if you stick to drafting 3, i think the game would lose some of its tension. so the ideal approach probably needs something a bit more than "just take one fewer turn/round" :)

[@thegamesninja3119]

@rahdo well, one idea is to end up using the dice to block off spots for a turn somehow. I personally felt the original game had too few turns, as did a lot of people. But, there can be of benefit a way to come up with a short game of 9 turns. Seems your major complaint is the game time being lengthened. Maybe each player randomly selects one die, rolls it, and places it on the board to block spaces.