Wouter & Ymke 
Koi is one of those games that people notice before they even know what it’s about. You put it on the table, and someone will say “oh wow” before you’ve explained a single rule. That’s not a bad thing, but it does raise expectations.
The theme is built around ornamental ponds and koi carp, which in many cultures are linked to patience, balance, and perseverance. In the game, you’re a koi breeder slowly shaping your own pond, trying to give your fish the best possible environment. It’s a quiet theme, and the game mostly sticks to that mood. Mostly.
👥 2-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designers: Rosaria Battiato, Massimo Borzì & Martino Chiacchiera
🎨 Artwork: Emiliano Castellano
🏢 Publisher: DV Games (review copy provided)
Gameplay overview
Everyone builds their own pond using hex tiles, with quite strict placement rules. On your turn, you choose between two options: taking a card or building in your pond. That’s it. No extra phases, no hidden actions. The game lives in that choice.
If you take a card, you pick one from a shared row. Some cards cost a coin, others give you a small bonus like tiles or coins, depending on where they sit in the row. After you take one, the rest slide over and a new card appears. It’s simple, but timing matters more than you’d expect. Sometimes you take a card because it fits your plan. Other times, it’s just the bonus that’s too good to ignore.
If you build, you do one main action in your pond. That might be placing water, foliage, a shore tile, or a koi. Or you upgrade something you already placed, like adding a water-lily or a lantern. The limits are quite tight, so you’re never just dumping pieces onto the board. You’re always choosing what matters most right now.
If you’ve picked up helper cards earlier, you can use them during a build turn. Each helper can be used once per turn, and together they can turn a modest action into a much bigger one. These moments feel good, but they also depend heavily on what cards showed up earlier.
There’s also a bit of flexibility through luck tokens. You can spend them at any time during your turn to grab specific tiles or to buy a koi for a bit more money. There’s no limit, so if things line up, turns can suddenly get very busy. Storage limits are only checked at the end of your turn, which means the game allows these slightly messy, satisfying combo moments before asking you to clean up.
Scoring comes mostly from koi. Bigger koi are worth more points, water-lilies make them better, and if you fully surround a koi with water edges, its value doubles. Lanterns score in straight lines, some cards score at the end, and goals add their own twists. Any luck tokens you didn’t use are also worth a point.
The game ends once the deck runs out or the last koi is taken. Everyone finishes the round, takes one more turn, and then you count points.
Artwork and components
There’s no way around it: Koi is a very good-looking game. The colours are calm, the artwork is clean, and nothing feels noisy or cluttered. Water tiles look like water, foliage looks soft, and the shore tiles frame everything nicely as the ponds grow.
The acrylic koi pieces are the obvious stars. They sit on top of the tiles and really do look like they’re swimming through the pond. The larger ones especially feel important, both visually and in terms of scoring. They’re one of those components people instinctively want to touch.
Lanterns and some of the goal tiles stand upright, which helps with reading scoring. They also help the ponds feel less flat, which is nice once the table fills up. Everything feels sturdy and well produced, without drifting into excess.
Nothing here feels flashy for the sake of it. The components do their job, and they do it well.
Our experience
Koi looks calm, and for the most part, it plays that way. Early turns are quiet and careful. You’re setting things up, trying not to block yourself in, and watching the card row more than your own pond. Later on, the game speeds up. Turns can suddenly become long, not because the rules are complex, but because you’ve built the ability to do a lot at once.
Those big turns are satisfying. They’re also uneven. If you get the right helpers early, or if the card row breaks your way, you can feel a step ahead for most of the game. That doesn’t mean others can’t catch up, but the tempo advantage is real.
The pond-building puzzle is strong. Because surrounding koi with water doubles their value, the game pushes you toward creating enclosed spaces rather than wide, open ponds. Early mistakes are hard to fully undo, and that gives the game some bite. It’s not punishing, but it does reward planning more than improvisation.
The shared card row creates more tension than we expected. Choosing when not to take a card is often just as important as choosing which one to take. That single decision ends up doing a lot of the work.
We’d strongly suggest using goals once you know the basics. Without them, Koi is fine but a bit flat. With them, the game gets more direction and more moments where timing really matters. The variety helps the game avoid feeling samey.
Our thoughts
Honestly, Koi feels very close to Bonsai. If you’ve played that, this will feel familiar very quickly. Same general flow, same pace, same focus on building something personal without direct conflict. If you didn’t enjoy Bonsai, Koi probably won’t change your mind.
What Koi adds is more to manage from turn to turn. There’s money to think about, more timing pressure, and more chances to line things up for a bigger turn. That’s a positive for players who enjoy planning turns in advance, but it also means the game can feel a bit swingy when things line up for someone else and not for you.
You never really interact directly with each other’s ponds. The tension comes from the cards, koi, and goals instead. The structure will feel familiar as well, with tile placement, personal boards, and a shared card row shaping the game. It makes the whole thing easy to fall into, especially if you like games where you mostly focus on your own space.
For us, Koi works best when you let it unfold at its own pace. It rewards paying attention and making small decisions at the right moment, and it’s satisfying to see a pond slowly come together in a way that makes sense. By the time scoring starts, you usually care more than you expected. And that’s usually a good thing, all things considered.
📝 We received a copy of the game from DV Games.
