Tatsu

The guys at BlueLine games have done an amazing job with my new game Tatsu (I'm the designer of the board game). The graphics are wonderful, the animated dragon stones look fantastic and the AI is now quite aggressive on the hardest level, it's beaten me 5 times in the last 12 games I played with it. That is really good, considering I beat it 64 times in a row before it was updated. Really looking forward to seeing the community grow with this game, as it has with my other game Hive. The physical board game is going to launch in the USA in about a week, so I'm really pleased to see that BlueLine games have managed to release the Steam version in time for that. A lot of hours, hard work and love has gone into this version, you can really see that when you play the game. Well done guys. John Yianni

After more than 100 hours playing this game, I owe it a review. Blueline developed this digital version of the game, but it was a board game first. I believe it came out last year (2016), and it's from the mind of John Yanni. He also designed the very very fantastic Hive. Blueline also developed the digital version of that game. I know Tatsu won't appeal to everyone, but I really dig it. It's my come home from work, turn on some music/podcasts, and relax game. As much as I love Hive and other abstract strategy games, they can be very stress inducing at times. Tatsu certainly rewards strategy and skill, but it's much more chill for me. The first thing to know about this game is that it's kind of like Backgammon. Rolling the dice and moving the pieces works the same way (except there is a limit of two pieces per space), and the opponents are moving in opposite directions. Tatsu has some very clever twists that make it feel unique and modern, but also like something I'll be playing wi...

The stuff that needs to be covered: The controls are good (obviously), it's point and click. The visuals are pretty, easy on the eyes. I like the theme. The "roll" box looks a tad out of place as just a green box, perhaps a little bit of style on that and the dice, but not a complaint just a suggestion. The music is good, decent variety. The game itself: I'd never heard of this boardgame but it looked pretty fun, so I got this. The "how to play" tells you what you need to know; how to move, what does what, how to win (or lose :P), and it all became clear after a game or two. Pass and play works fine, haven't tried online multiplayer but I suspect there's a small community at the moment (whatever could tell you that, oh single english review?) The AI is, from what I can tell, good. I played against the easy AI and lost twice then started beating it and noticing where it could've done better moves and moved on up the chain. You pick this game up pretty quick. I like the probabilistic el...

I like this game so much after playing a few hours that I bought the physical version. It's a nicely designed game, most similar in concept to Backgammon, but with a few twists. In Tatsu you have three different types of counters each having a different effect if they land on an opponents counter. You travel infinitely around the board attempting to "take" all of your opponents counters of one type. Either that or place your opponent in a position where they have no tiles to move on the board. It's as simple as that. The interface serves its purpose, but has a very basic feel. There's no flashy dice roll graphics, the sound effects are slightly annoying and the game could do with a serious amount of polishing. BUT, it all works as it should. It's a fun casual game with a similar balance of luck and strategy to the aforementioned Backgammon. You might need friends that play it if you want to play online as the playerbase seems fairly small. I've tried to find an online match ...

*PLEASE READ TO THE END* From what i've seen the game is based on a boredgame, which i love and is why i bought it. I've been playing vs. the AI on medium dificulty and have noticed two very annouying things. The first of which is that the AI sometimes jumps spaces full on the inner and outer ring, giving it an extra move. The game is young so glitches or mistakes are bound to happen. The second being the AI seems to get just the right rolls to stay one step ahead of you. In my opinion i think the strategies of the AI should become increasingly difficult, not how lucky it gets. I also noticed the same in turn for the player facing the AI, always one or two numbers short or too many to make any kind of a decent move. I know some out there arent going to like that fact that i'm downing this game based on this, seeing as it's luck based, but i feel like the AI just gets too perfect of moves too often. Best thing i can say is incorperate a log players can go back to reference too that s...

Game could be really cool but has one fatal flaw. Creating fire dragon "towers" on both sides can lead to a mexican standoff with both sides waiting for the oponnent to open up, with absolutely zero reason to do it first and no way to flush opponent out of his ambush.

I have to cosign some of these negative reviews. I bought this game because I'm a fan of Hive (the physical game, anyway), and Tatsu was designed by the same guy, and has won awards. I bought Tatsu solely for the aforementioned reasons, and ignored the reviews because I paid less than $5. However, even at that super cheap price, I still wish I hadn't bought the game. I played vs the lowest CPU difficulty maybe 5 times in a row after reading through the tutorial (it's non-interactive, which is fine, but it's hard to conceptualize what it says about the board when it doesn't show the board during that tutorial, which is pretty dumb). The first time, I didn't really know how to play, and lost almost immediately. I thought that was weird, as any game set to its lowest difficulty should basically be like playing vs a potato, IMO, but maybe my lack of understanding of the game rules really was that bad. The next four games, though, as I thoroughly learn the rules and some strategies, ...

After playing 10 games, I never managed to win one. Even on Easy! The dice roller is hardly random, the AI ALWAYS gets what it needs to take your pieces. I do NOT recommend this game, If I could get my money back, I would. This is not a fun game or even challenging, it's ridiculous how the AI cheats.

It's a sad commentary on a game's randomizer when I can predict with over 90% accuracy what the A.I. player will roll on any given turn (e.g. 9 out of 10 times it will roll EXACTLY a number it needs, especially when a red dragon has an opportunity to eliminate one of your dragons. It cheats worse than the computer version of Talisman.). I gave the physical version of this game a pass because of the abysmal packaging. I wish I'd given the computer version a pass and bought Small World 2 instead. ADDENDUM: Purchased today, requesting a refund tomorrow. It's a Small World after all.

Very thinkful game it is. It has truely more of Senet and Backgammon than to Chess and Stratego in 66% to 33%, meanwhile it has tendency to strategy of chess playing because of the three different colors in ranks. I have found a new game ot these combinations and the intelligence of computer works fine with me on the level "harder". I give this one into my favorites a long time!