Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game

About this board game

Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game is a clever card game for 2–4 players that takes about 20 minutes to play. Collect colorful koi and decide whether each one belongs in your public pond or your secret house.

Each turn, players draw from the face-down deck or the face-up lake until everyone has three new cards in hand. Then, simultaneously, everyone chooses one card from their entire hand to add to their pond and one to discard into their personal river.

Your scoring challenge is balance. For every koi suit, compare the number in your pond with the number in your house, then score points equal to the lower number. A large collection in only one location will not reach its full potential, so every placement matters.

• Public pond: Build a visible collection while watching your opponents’ choices.
• Secret house: Hide part of your strategy and work toward balanced suit totals.
• Personal river: Discarded cards can later return to the lake, making them available to everyone.
• Special animals: Cranes, housecats, and turtles can award bonus points based on koi in an opponent’s pond, house, or river.

After six turns, the round ends and each suit is scored. Ribbons go to the player with the most koi of each suit in their river, providing bonus points at the end of the game. Sending valuable koi to your river may earn ribbons, but it can also make those cards available to your opponents in the next round.

In Koi Pond, every choice involves risk: fill your pond, protect your hidden house, pursue a ribbon, or use a special animal to benefit from another player’s work. The player with the most points wins.