Tho' it has a mythical flying dragon theme, Tatsumi is an abstract strategy game from Adam's Apple Games which has a strong puzzle optimisation element. There are rules and components for solitaire play but the core game takes 2-4 players. It's designed by Jeremy Rozenhart with art by Shirley Gong.
Players each have their own island boards (you can play with them all the same or flip the boards for asymmetric islands) but the meat of the game is the 5 x 5 grid on which players fly their dragons. Each of the places on the grid contains up to four discs, randomised in set up. You Fly your dragon every turn, moving it any distance in an unblocked orthogonal or diagonal line, and you take the top ring from the space you vacate. As one of your three additional actions, you can Gather any two of the top rings orthogonally adjacent to your dragon. You can take this Gather action either before or after your dragon flies.
When you've collected the mix of colour rings required by any of the Shrine cards on any of the four sides of the grid, you can take the Score action for a Shrine to which your dragon is adjacent. This lets you place the rings out on your individual island board. There rings scores for the size of group of their colour. Islands also score at the end of the game for particular elements covered, so the decision on where best to place out your coloured rings offers an interesting optimisation puzzle.
Players all have five dragon scales and for every game there'll be one of each of three types of 'Sanctuary' card laid out. As an alternative to a Gathering or Scoring action, you can Shed a scale on a Sanctuary for a benefit. The Reef and Forest Sanctuaries are activated with a single scale, tho' there's an area control bonus on the Reef Sanctuaries that incentivises multiple visits. The Mountain Sanctuary cards offer notably more powerful benefits that extend throughout the game but you have to spend all your remaining scales to take the Shedscale action there. Again, an interesting tactical dilemma for players: do you go to the Mountain Sanctuary early to get a power that can give you an extra benefit for the entirety of the game or do you first spend scales at the other Sanctuaries to get their bonuses...
Shown here on Board's Eye View is a preview prototype of Tatsumi produced ahead of the game's crowdfunding launch. We've hugely enjoyed our plays of Tatsumi, both with identical islands and dragons and in the games we've played with asymmetric islands and dragon powers. The game is at its most interactive with four players because the increased opportunity for blocking keeps the 5 x 5 grid busily interactive. Tatsumi has had a successful run on Gamefound and the crowdfunding campaign finishes this week, so click here now to check it out before the campaign ends.