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Let’s take a little trip to Osaka, just a few centuries back. Walking in Osaka is set in 1620, during Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate. The castle’s being rebuilt, the city’s alive with merchants, samurai, and temples, and in the middle of it all is Fanny, a traveler who somehow ends up in this time period, exploring the streets and recording what she sees.
In the game, you follow her footsteps, collecting cards that show slices of life from old Osaka and arranging them into a kind of photobook, building your own colorful version of the city by the end. It’s a game where you move around, collect scenes, and try to make everything fit together just right.
👥 2-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designer: Daniel Lee Yingjie
🎨 Artwork: Jorge Tabanera Redondo
🏢 Publisher: EmperorS4 (Review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The game starts with a 3×3 grid of town cards in the middle of the table. That’s the city everyone’s exploring. Around the edges you place location tiles, and your little wooden pawn starts out on those outskirts. Everyone also has their own small photobook area, where you’ll slowly build your version of Osaka.
Each turn follows three simple parts: travel, sightseeing, and replenish and score.
In the travel phase you move your pawn one or two steps clockwise around the edge of the city. If you want to go farther, you can spend sandal tokens. If someone’s pawn is in your way, you just hop over it, and that jump still counts as one step. When you stop on a location tile, if your photobook layout meets that tile’s condition, you can claim it for a bonus. You place it on top of a fitting column in your photobook, flip it face down, and that column’s now closed for further building. If there’s no tile left where you land, you simply get one sandal token instead.
In the sightseeing phase you take one town card from the same row or column as your pawn and add it to your photobook. Cards have to touch each other, no gaps allowed. You can build up to five cards wide and four cards high, which is five blocks tall in total. The white flag icon on each card shows which way is up.
After placing a card, you can check your location tile again. If your new layout now meets the requirement, you can claim it right away. It feels good when that happens, honestly.
If you emptied a row or column when taking a card, you refill that line from the deck. If you emptied both, you refill all five spaces in each line before anything else. That refill is what triggers scoring.
The shogunate pawn moves clockwise around the scoring board to show which type of district scores this round. The active player moves it one or two spaces, or farther if they spend sandals, and everyone scores that district in their own photobook.
Each district has its own way of scoring. Samurai-machi, the green ones, give one point for each townsmen block, called chōnin-chi, below them, even in other columns. Shūkyō-machi, the temple districts, give one point for each visible sky symbol in the same column. Yokujō, the blue bathhouses, give one point for each garden or townsmen block in the same row, and also some extra points if you’ve connected several bathhouses in a row. Teien, the gardens, give three points if next to one samurai or shrine, two points if next to two, one point if next to three or more, and none if they’re isolated. Chōnin-chi, the brown townsmen districts, give one point for each different building type, except themselves, in the same zone.
Zones are connected blocks of the same color background, and townsmen count as double for zone size. Large zones, with four or more connected blocks, also give three points when that scoring type is active.
The game lasts ten rounds, and by the end everyone will have twelve cards in their photobook, two from setup and ten from the rounds. After that comes final scoring. You score one point for every block in your largest connected zone, with townsmen blocks counting as two. Then you score based on where your bonus marker ends up. If it stayed on its starting space, you get four points for every set of five different icons in your photobook. Before scoring, you can spend two sandals to move it to a new scoring option on the board, which then decides how you’ll score instead. Once all points are counted, the player with the highest total wins.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
We played with a non-final prototype, so what you see in our photos isn’t the finished product. Can’t really comment on the component quality, but the look of the game already came through nicely.
If you’ve played other games in EmperorS4’s Walking in series, like Walking in Burano or Walking in Provence, this one fits right in visually. Artist Jorge Tabanera Redondo has filled Walking in Osaka with color and small details: wooden houses, temples, blooming trees, busy streets. When your cards line up, they create a panoramic city scene that actually looks alive. It’s a game you’ll want to take a photo of when you’re done.
The table looks great too, with traveler pawns moving along the city’s edge, sandals piling up, and each player slowly building their own Osaka. Even with prototype components, the layout made sense and stayed readable.
Our Experience
So, how does it play? Pretty calmly, to be honest. Walking in Osaka isn’t a game about rushing. It’s more about watching the grid change, planning when to trigger scoring, and hoping you’ll benefit more than the others when it happens.
Scoring doesn’t happen after every turn, only when a row or column gets refilled. That creates a funny tension where you’re kind of hoping someone else will trigger it when it suits you, but not too much. When you’re the one refilling, you get to move the shogunate pawn and choose which district scores. Sometimes that helps everyone, sometimes just you, and sometimes you realize too late that you helped someone else a bit too much.
Movement feels deliberate. Spending sandals early can help you, but saving them for later turns can make a big difference, especially when you want to steer the pawn toward a scoring type that really fits your layout. You’re never directly attacking anyone, but timing your turns to control scoring gives the game a bit of tension.
Building your photobook is where the personal puzzle lives. You have to decide when to seal a column with a tile bonus or keep growing it taller for better scoring later. It’s that little “should I stop now or push one more level?” decision that gives the game its flow.
By the end, everyone’s Osaka looks different. It’s fun seeing how other players’ layouts evolve, one going tall and structured, another wide and colorful. You can’t really hate anyone’s city by the end.
Our Thoughts
For me, Walking in Osaka works best as a relaxed, strategic puzzle. It rewards paying attention, and you’ll enjoy it most if you like games where timing and structure matter.
It plays best with two or three people. At four, it can feel a bit messy, more competition for location tiles and a bit of luck in when scoring triggers. You sometimes get those “oh no, you just helped them win” moments, but that’s part of its charm too.
The game rewards focus. Pick two or three district types to specialize in and go with that. Trying to do everything usually spreads you too thin. Keeping an eye on which rows might empty soon helps you plan when to trigger scoring.
And sandals, yes, they’re tiny tokens, but they’re powerful. Using them at the right moment can flip a round in your favor. Save a few for late game; it’s usually worth it.
The only real bump for new players is learning how each of the five district types scores. It takes a couple of rounds before it clicks, but once it does, the game flows easily. After that, teaching it to others is quick.
Walking in Osaka is thoughtful and satisfying, though not for everyone. If you like fast games with constant action, this isn’t it. But if you enjoy quiet planning, shared scoring, and a table full of color by the end, this one’s worth a stroll.
And honestly, even if you lose, you’ll probably still sit back at the end and think, “Well, at least my Osaka looks amazing.”
📝 We received a copy of the game from EmperorS4 for review purposes.
