A little over a year ago, we had a Chinese themed game night right around the time of Chinese New Year / Lantern Festival. It was a great evening of dumplings, sesame balls, spring rolls, and of course, games!

At a Glance…

The Snacks

Whatever you want to call these little delights of dough filled joy, they are yummy no matter the name. I first had them while fundraising to go to India, (where they are called momos). Our friend had lived there and learned the Tibetan way to make them. We made sooooo many of them late into the night to sell to friends and classmates. Then we got to experience the real thing in India! I next had another version while living in South Korea (where they are called mondu). And most recently, I often talk about them with my Chinese students where they are usually called dumplings. In any case, they are not too hard to make and can be filled with whatever your heart desires! When I say not too hard, I especially mean that if you buy your own circle dough instead of making your own lol. Listed below is the recipe I use for my filling (spinach and cheese and potato are my favorite!), but I’m sure you can find other filling recipes online too.

The Strategy

Takenoko is one of our family’s early favorites! We saw it on an episode of Tabletop , and knew we needed this cuteness in our lives. It’s also a good game mechanically! You are both a panda trying to eat bamboo, a gardener trying to grow the bamboo, and the emperor who wants his garden in specific shapes and colors. On your turn you can move the panda to eat bamboo, move the garden to grow the bamboo, or place more tiles in the mutually shared garden. You’re doing this to fulfill orders needing specific combinations of those things. The little panda and gardener are so adorable, and if you get the expansion, you get a Mrs. Panda! 😍I once bonded over board games with one of my Chinese students, and after telling him about this game, he proudly showed me a few days later how he’d bought both it and the expansion! Board games bring people together!

Lanterns is such a simple game that can be played with anyone, kids, grandparents, and gamers! You are simply playing one of the tiles in your hand to what is out on the table. You actually don’t have to match anything, but if you do, bonus! You get a card with the same color of the tile that’s oriented towards you, as well as any matches you make. You then use these cards to fulfill sets of pairs, one of each, etc. Super simple, but beautiful to see when done and it’s fun to build something together. If you’re wanting a little more meat to it, the expansion adds some great twists that up its complexity just a tad.

Gugong was the heaviest and crunchiest of this evening’s Chinese games. Gugong is a worker placement game, but you actually use both workers and cards, which are…gifts…that must be increasing in value from what had previously been played there. You can do things like travel by horseback around the country to get bonuses, gather jade, help to build the Great Wall, travel by boat down the river, and court the emperor’s favor. Speaking of which, it does have a mechanism I don’t usually like, where if you haven’t pleased the emperor enough, you can’t win no matter what else you’ve done. I find that frustrating, but it makes sense in the game and it isn’t too hard to do. The whole playing higher cards than the previous person thing makes it slightly better to play at more than 2 players, but I will still play it just about any time. I wish I could get my hands on the expansion, but alas. What’s a girl to do? Play another game I suppose. 😂

Want to buy these games? Check out your friendly local game store (FLGS), Amazon [here], or get a first-order discount at Board Game bliss [here].

Or get Lanterns on Amazon.ca or Amazon.com or Takenoko on Amazon.com