Sensu – Folding Fans & Finding Fifteen

In Sensu, you’re basically trying to make 15. That’s it. That’s the hook.

It’s dressed up in beautiful folding fan artwork inspired by traditional Japanese design, but once you sit down and play, it’s a tight little numbers puzzle. And I mean tight in a good way, not in a “why is my brain sweating during a 30-minute card game” way. Well… sometimes that too.

You play combinations that add up to exactly fifteen. If you manage that, you get to redeem certain cards and use them to build fans in front of you. Sounds simple. It is simple to explain. It’s not always simple to play well.

There’s a base mode and an advanced mode. Same core idea, different level of pressure. We started with the base game, obviously. And we quickly realised that “just make 15” is not really the full story.

👥 1-5 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designers: Enrico Vicario
🎨 Artwork: Andrea Guerrieri

🏢 Publisher: DV Games (review copy provided)

Gameplay overview

On your turn you choose one thing. Either you draw cards, or you play a combination. No third option, no workaround. Just those two.

If you draw, you either take two cards from the deck and discard one, or you take the top card from any discard pile. Yes, any. Including your own. Everyone has their own discard pile, so you’re not just looking at your hand. You’re also eyeing the tops of other piles thinking, “please don’t take that before my turn.” You can’t hold more than five cards, so you’re constantly managing space.

If you play, you put down cards from your hand that add up to exactly 15. Not 14. Not 16. Exactly 15. You’d be surprised how often you repeat that number during a game. Fifteen. There’s something about it.

You can use at most one wild card in a combination. Wilds have three possible values printed on them, and you choose which one you’re using when you play them. Important detail, because I know someone will ask this at the table. Even if you use a wild as, let’s say, a 3 to make 15, it does not count as a 3 when checking for duplicate values. It only counts for its colour. That tripped us up the first time.

When you play a valid 15, you redeem the card with the most sticks from that set. Sticks are basically the strength of the card for building fans. Then, if your combination had at least two cards of the same value, you redeem one extra card. If it had at least two cards of the same colour, you redeem another extra card. Maximum of two additional. But those extra redeems must be the ones with the fewest sticks.

So you’re constantly balancing. You don’t just ask “can I make 15?” You ask “can I make 15 in a way that gives me the sticks I actually want?”

All redeemed cards must be used if possible. If you can legally add them to a fan, you have to. If you can’t, they’re discarded. No saving them for later.

Fans are built by colour. One fan per colour, maximum five. In the base game, a fan closes at exactly seven sticks. If adding a card would push it over seven, you’re not allowed to add it. Once a fan is closed, that colour is done for you.

The base game ends when someone closes their third fan, then everyone finishes the round. Most closed fans wins.

Advanced mode

The advanced mode keeps the same structure, but scoring changes. Now you’re chasing puffs of air instead of just racing to three fans.

Power tokens are worth one puff each. Bonus markers are worth three. Completed fans give three or five puffs depending on whether you hit exactly seven sticks or went over.

And yes, in advanced mode, you can go over seven. If redeemed cards push you to seven or more, the fan immediately closes. Exactly seven gives you a great fan and five puffs. More than seven gives you three. So hitting exactly seven isn’t just about closing a fan anymore, it’s about getting the better reward.

Cards with value 3 and 4 have power icons. If you redeem one and add it to a fan, you get the matching power token. Only one per colour. At the start of your turn, before doing anything else, you can spend a power token to activate its ability. Some let you draw more cards, some let you grab from discard piles, some let you directly add cards to fans.

For us, that changes the feel quite a bit. The base game feels like a sprint. The advanced game feels more open. You fix your hand with a power, then try to convert that into a strong 15. When it works, it feels great. When it doesn’t, well… you’ve just spent a token and achieved very little.

The game ends when someone reaches at least fifteen puffs and the round finishes. Or if the deck runs out for the second time. Which, honestly, is a nice safety net. It keeps things from dragging.

There’s also a solo mode. It plays differently, more like a personal puzzle with columns of cards. We tried it once. It’s fine. Not my favourite way to experience the game, but it’s there if you enjoy solo card optimisation.

Artwork and components

Let’s take a moment to talk about how it looks, because that’s probably what catches your eye first.

The fan cards are beautiful. Each colour has its own tone and pattern. When you overlap them to build a fan, they actually look like layered folding fans. That’s not just decorative, it genuinely helps you see the stick totals clearly.

The sensu cards you place on top of completed fans feature character art inspired by Japanese theatre and folklore. They make the finished fans feel less abstract. It’s not just numbers anymore, there’s a face looking back at you.

The player boards are simple and clear. In advanced mode, the powers are icon-based. After one round, you don’t really need to look things up anymore.

Everything feels coherent. Not flashy, not overproduced. Just well put together. It’s one of those games where people say “oh, that’s pretty” before asking how it plays. And then five minutes later they’re doing maths.

Our experience

“Make 15” sounds breezy. Something you play while chatting. And you can. But once everyone understands the redeem system, it gets sharper.

Because you always redeem the highest sticks first, and the lowest sticks for bonuses, you end up calculating backwards more often than you expect. Sometimes triggering both bonus redeems is actually bad for you. You get extra cards, yes, but you’re forced to place them if possible. That can mess up your perfect seven.

We had turns where someone proudly announced their 15, only to realise it ruined their fan math completely. That’s a specific kind of pain. Card game pain.

The five-card hand limit keeps pressure high. You can’t hoard. You’re always cycling. The draw action looks harmless, but choosing between two from the deck or one from a discard pile is often the real decision of the turn.

And since you can draw from any discard pile, there’s a small denial element. Leave something too good on top and the next player might thank you for it. At five players, this becomes more chaotic. Someone almost always has what they need. At two or three, it feels tighter and more controlled. I guess we preferred it at three.

The base game is quick and clean, but it can feel like a straight race. If someone gets ahead early, catching up is not easy. In the advanced mode, you have a bit more space to fix a bad turn, but also more to think about. If someone at the table likes to optimise everything, turns can stretch a little. We had a few turns where someone stared at their hand for longer than the game’s length suggests.

There’s some luck, of course. Small hands and exact totals mean you can stall. Wild cards help. Powers help more. But it’s still a tactical game first.

Our thoughts

Sensu feels like a solid filler with more depth than it shows at first. It’s not revolutionary. It’s not trying to be. It’s a clean system built around a very strict constraint. And that constraint does a lot of work.

After a few games, we could already see the gap forming. The person who really understood redeem order and stick math started pulling ahead more often. In mixed groups, that might matter. Replayability comes from getting better at the puzzle rather than seeing new things each time. If you enjoy optimisation and small tactical decisions, you’ll probably like it more over time.

The forced placement rule probably won’t work for everyone. In our group, this was the part that divided opinions. Being required to add a redeemed card that doesn’t quite fit your plan can feel frustrating. At one point someone literally said, “I just don’t want to place that there.” But the game doesn’t give you that choice. And that’s intentional.

For us, the advanced mode is where it really comes together. More paths to points, more timing decisions, more small “aha” moments. The base mode is fine, but the advanced mode gives it more to chew on.

At the end of the day, it’s a game about making fifteen and managing sticks. That sounds almost silly when you say it like that. And yet, it works.

Also, I didn’t expect a folding fan to make us stare this hard at our hands. I guess we underestimated the power of a good fan. Yes, I’ll see myself out.

📝 We received a copy of the game from DV Games.