2018 · 2-4 players · 45min · weight 1.89 · 1,560 ratings
At a glance — v4 wide
Controlled-vocabulary primitives + 8-axis MDA aesthetic vector. Vocab v2.
Play a card following lead suit in a trick; capture boss yokai by winning the specific trick that triggers it.
- [3]trick_taking_trump— “player who played strongest card matching lead suit takes all cards played this turn”
- [2]hand_management_under_draw— “hand management trick counting; play cards strategically to capture boss yokai triggers”
- [2]set_collection_concentrating— “capture as many yokai as you can; more yokai captured wins; boss yokai are high-value targets”
- [2]_other:trick_capture_threshold— “capture boss yokai by winning specific threshold trick; trick_taking_trump covers lead-suit but not threshold capture timing; exact_bid_trick_taking rejected (no bid)”
Archetype fits — v4 deep
How well this game shape maps to mobile archetype templates. Composite is a weighted sum of the 10 fit dimensions.
| Archetype | Composite | LTF | Session | Combo | Arc | Share | 5in | Onboard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coop Cooperative team trick-taking with communication_constraint puts bluff_info_asymmetry load-bearing (8) — partners must read signals from played cards in The Crew shape; strongest archetype match for the game by far. | 5.90 | 7.0 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 4 |
| Snap Yokai Septet's hidden-hand trick-taking delivers strong bluff_info_asymmetry (7) — partners must read each other's plays, mirroring Snap's lane-reveal information game. 45-min session compresses imperfectly and team-based 4-player + trick-taking onboarding cliff is steep for Snap's ≤2min standard. | 5.60 | 7.0 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
| Balatro Yokai Septet is partner-coordinated trick-taking — hand_management_under_draw delivers some compounding (winning early tricks shapes which 7s are still capturable, score 4) but no engine_growth, no joker-stack analog. Fixed deck breaks content_extensibility (3); team-based loop is fundamentally PvP, not Balatro-shape solo run. | 5.00 | 6.0 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
| Cozy Trick-taking is not in the cozy BGG list — Unknown tier; competitive team-vs-team loss state with declared winning pair makes loss_tolerance_fit feel pointed (3). Yokai art is tonally cozy-adjacent but the loop is wrong shape. | 4.10 | 3.0 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 4 |
| Wordle Trick-taking is fundamentally 4-player partner-coordinated; without team partners and rival pair, the core verb collapses. 45-min session also far past Wordle's 60-90s ceiling and trick-taking onboarding far past ≤30s pictorial standard. | 3.50 | 5.0 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
Translation candidate
Composite fit_score = bayes×0.30 + wish×0.18 + compress×0.17 + difficulty×0.20 + headroom×0.15.
Two-to-four player trick-taking with boss capture conditions is simple async mobile fare; the Japanese theming is distinctive.
Rules card
Synthesized from sources below. Readiness: ready. Confidence: 0.88.
Readiness
ready (confidence=0.88, rules=0.90, fun=0.85). BGG rank: 1983; year: 2018; weight: 1.89; playtime: 45 min
| Source | Quality | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
bga_tutorial | 0.85 | rules authority | BGA implementation rules summary |
bgg_comments | 0.75 | player voice | positive/player-voice sample |
llm_memory | 0.10 | draft synthesis | sonnet-self-rated-3-unknown |
Core Loop
StoryLong time ago in the land of rising sun, spirits and demons known as Yokai were harming human lives. Yokai did not directly attack people, but they were causing supernatural disasters: Yokai caused farmlands to burn, rivers to flood, thunders to roar, and diseases to spread. One day a chieftain of the nearby village visited you, an Onmyoji, a practitioner of Japanese esoteric cosmology. Through your knowledge of astronomy and occultism, you discover the only way to help save the village. It is simple: the more Yokai you manage to capture, the less the menace caused by these demons. After a few months in the village, you are successful in your efforts; the Yokai menace is completely eradicated in that village! Then, word reaches you of the havoc being wrecked by the Yokai on your own village. In your absence, the village chieftain has consulted another Onmyoji to help save your village. This is an affront because this is your village and the people under attack are your people. It is your job to save the day! Do not let another Onmyoji save the day and go down in history as the greatest there ever was and the Savior of your village at the time of need. Compete against your rival Onmyoji and capture as many Yokai as you can! Gameplay OverviewIn Yokai Septet, your goal is to capture high scoring Boss Yokai by strategically playing cards from your hand. Each turn, players play a card from their hand following the rules of the "trick taking games." After everyone has played a card, the player who played the strongest card matching the lead suit takes all the cards played this turn. A new turn continues until one of the round's end condition is met. At the end of the round, the winner of that round is determined. In a 4-player game, the game is played as a team battle...
Turn Structure and State
- BGA tutorial is present; useful for exact turn flow and implementation gotchas.
- BGG description anchor: StoryLong time ago in the land of rising sun, spirits and demons known as Yokai were harming human lives. Yokai did not directly attack people, but they were causing supernatural disasters: Yokai caused farmlands to burn, rivers to flood, thunders to roar, and diseases to spread. One day a chieftain of the nearby village visited you, an Onmyoji, a practitioner of Japanese esoteric cosmology. Through your [...]
Win Condition and Arc
Win/scoring arc needs verification from a rules authority.
Decision Primitives
BGG mechanisms: Team-Based Game, Trick-taking
v4 controlled primitives: _other:trick_taking_with_team_coordination, hand_management_under_draw, communication_constraint, set_collection_concentrating
Top iOS archetype fits: coop 5.9, snap 5.6, balatro 5.0.
Why It Is Fun
Fun read needs player-voice synthesis.
Player-voice evidence:
- I bought this game because the artwork attracted me. After playing, I really like it. Easy to learn and fun to play. Using some light memory and deduction can set you in a winning place.
- Interesting partnership game where you're walking a tightrope to capture tricks containing a 7 before you win 7 tricks without a 7. What shifts the game into the next level is you give three cards to your partner, so you know a quarter...
- A decent trick taker with some interesting features. The game is all about sevens; seven suits of seven cards, the object of the game to collect sevens (three of them) without winning seven tricks, seven points win the advanced game....
- [BGCOLOR=#66FF99] [b]8 [/BGCOLOR] Oct 2022 - 3 plays[/b] Not many hobbyist trick-taking games seem designed for partners, and so Yokai earns my attention there. I wouldn't consider playing this at 3p unless someone really convinced me....
- I’ve only played twice, but we had a lot of fun trying to wrap our heads around this game. Also, nice to play a partnership trick-taker that doesn’t require bidding.
Friction and Failure Modes
- Treat Sonnet-memory edge rules as draft until confirmed by manual, BGA, or transcript.
Translation and Design Hooks
- Use this card to ask: which primitive carries the fun if theme/licensing is removed?
- For iOS, look for short-session compression, clear state visualization, and a digital-only twist.
- For new tabletop design, look for the tension source and decide whether to preserve or invert it.
Edge Rules and Gotchas
No verified edge-rule section yet.
Sources Used
[
{
"kind": "bga_tutorial",
"path": "data/bga_tutorials/251433.md",
"quality": 0.85,
"note": "BGA implementation rules summary"
},
{
"kind": "bgg_comments",
"path": "data/bgg_comments/251433.txt",
"quality": 0.75,
"note": "positive/player-voice sample"
},
{
"kind": "llm_memory",
"path": "data/llm_memory_sonnet/251433.md",
"quality": 0.1,
"note": "sonnet-self-rated-3-unknown"
}
]
Sources (3)
Inputs to rules-card synthesis. Click any pill with ↗ to open the original source.