KAWA: A Game About Flow (2020)

Overview

Kawa is a game of quiet contemplation for 2 to 4 players, named after the word for river (川) in Japanese.

In Kawa, you guide petals down a river made up of 16 unique tiles. Each round, players will follow the currents and eddies printed on the tiles to send their petals downstream, leaving petals behind as they do.

As the river comes alive with colour, players must carefully avoid flowing into other players' petals—when that occurs, those players gain points. This is made all the more challenging as when each player flows, they swap two adjacent river tiles, changing up the river's paths.

Between each round, the river flows forward, washing away the furthest row of tiles and shuffling them back to the start. Hence, simply following the river's currents is easy - but mastering the game will require players to learn to read its constantly changing flow. After four rounds, the player with the most points wins.

Flora and fauna, represented as special tiles, breathe life into the river. Every game, players replace two river tiles with special tiles, each with their own unique effects. These range from a Crab that shuffles up the board by scuttling across the river, to a Shrine that rewards players for spreading their petals across as much as the river as possible. With nine different special tiles of varying complexity to choose from, both casual and hardcore players will find something new to love each foray down the river.

—description from the publisher