One of my favorite tile placement games has to be Kohaku. This beautiful and serene game from designer Danny Devine is puzzley in all the right ways. The base game has you building a pond filled with koi and various features that score in different ways. Since its release in 2021, the game has received a small sundial expansion that adds a new scoring mechanic for all players.
Kohaku: The Big Pond is a new modular expansion that not only includes the sundial expansion, but also a whole new way to play. Let’s jump into all the new elements this expansion has to offer.
(Note: this expansion requires a base game of Kohaku to play. You’ll need the standard edition of the game, not the deluxe version with acrylic tiles.)
Guided by the Sun
Inside Kohaku: The Big Pond, you’ll find the Sundials Expansion which was originally released in 2022. In the center of the table, compass cards are drawn and laid out in the north, east, south, and west of a central sundial card. These cards include additional point values that are available when players place those specific features relative to the sundial token that starts their individual pond.
Each player will start with a sundial in their color which will count as a starting feature. The gameplay in this expansion doesn’t change, so players who are use to the drafting and tile placement of Kohaku will feel right at home.
The Sundials Expansion will award bonus points to players that match the orientation of the compass cards that came out at the start of the game. This challenges players to build specific features in certain areas of their pond to maximize points. With eighteen different features in the compass deck, this means replayability is high in this small expansion.
Pond Secrets
The second module in Kohaku: The Big Pond is a new set of hidden objective cards. There are eighteen hidden objectives in the deck and each player is given two cards at the start of the game. You’ll choose one objective card and return the other back to the deck. This objective card offers will score end game points based on tiles that appear in your pond.
This is an easy addition to the base game and adds a new scoring mechanic for each player.
Wild Koi
The Blue Koi is a new koi tile that is introduced in this expansion. Four random koi tiles are removed from play and the four new Blue Koi are shuffled into the stack. While there are only four of these, they are incredibly powerful when added to your pond.
During scoring, these koi count as any single color that you want. The best part is that they can change color based on what feature you are scoring. Since these new koi only count as a single color of your choice, you have to remember that they can never count as a two-tone koi.
Beautiful New Features
Kohaku: The Big Pond comes with six new feature tiles that bring unique scoring and disruptions to your precious pond. These new features can be mixed and matched with the original game tiles.
Bamboo Reeds: This new feature will score adjacent koi that all have identical colors or color combinations. While hard to achieve, having four identical colored koi surrounding Bamboo Reeds will earn you fifteen points.
Cats: These curious felines want to see every color of koi in the pond. The Cat feature can only see three sides of the tile and permanently blocks the fourth side. You’ll be awarded nine points as long as the Cat can see all four koi colors, so watch for those two-tone koi tiles. This new feature is sure to disrupt your pond building as it permanently blocks off the space that represents the shoreline where the cat is perched.
Mandarin Ducks: These social fowl will score two points for every Mandarin Duck feature tile that appears in any players pond. You’ll want to make sure your opponents don’t hoard all the ducks so you can enjoy this new scoring mechanic.
Fountains: These beautiful structures are similar to statues but score points based on unique features that are diagonally adjacent to them. You score the most points by having four different features connected in the four corners of your Fountain.
Herons: These majestic birds are worth a big eight points but will scare away any future koi tiles from being placed adjacent to the Heron. Earning the points is nice, but will you ruin the flow of your pond when introducing this feathered feature?
Wildflowers: Like the flowers in the base game, this feature is looking for specific colored koi to be placed adjacent to it. The twist is that the player picks a single color to score for that Wildflower feature at the end of the game. You’ll earn one point for each of that chosen color or twelve points if that color is represented on all four sides.
These new feature tiles integrate seamlessly into the game and adds a level of complexity that we really enjoy. The cat and heron features can really put a wrinkle in the building of your pond. These new features both block sides of the tile, forcing you to build in a different direction.
The Big Pond
Finally, the biggest piece of this expansion is a brand-new gameplay mode called The Big Pond. This new mode fundamentally changes Kohaku and ramps up the competitive play of this otherwise chill game.
Instead of each player building their own pond, players are building a single collective pond in the center of the table. Set up for the game is slightly different with the drafting of tiles coming from a loop that players will move around as they draft. At the start of your turn, you can draft the two tiles directly in front of the koi token. If you want any other tiles, you must pay coins to jump tiles to reach the two tiles that you do want to draft.
Players have four coins to start each game. Once you spend them, the only way to gain more coins is by drafting tiles that have coins placed on them because they had previously been skipped over. You’ll always draft a single koi and a single feature.
After drafting, you’ll add the new tiles to the Big Pond in the center of the table. You’ll add one of your three player tokens to the new feature tile that you add to the pond. At the end of your turn, you have the option to score a feature by removing one of your player tokens from the Big Pond. Scoring immediately happens and you earn bonus points for koi that match your player color.
With each player only having three player tokens, you’ll inevitably have to score a feature before you can maximize the points for it. The collective building of the Big Pond means that players have opportunities to sabotage your scoring. You’re no longer playing Kohaku in a silo and every placement matters.
Final Thoughts
Some of my favorite expansions are modular. I love having the option of adding and modifying the game based on the players at the table. Kohaku: The Big Pond adds multiple options to modify the original gameplay of Kohaku. The six new feature tiles in the game add some nice variety to the game no matter how you choose to play.
The new gameplay that is offered with The Big Pond is really well done. As someone who has played Kohaku A LOT since awarding it my best game of 2021, this new game mode feels fresh and more competitive. This expansion makes Kohaku even more replayable without over complicating the original game.
Kohaku: The Big Pond is coming to Kickstarter from Gold Seal Games in April 2026. Back this expansion for even more pond building fun on your game table.
A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.
