🌸 Seikatsu — a Garden of Perspectives
⭐ 30/10
Players: 1–4
Playtime: 20–30 minutes
Difficulty: Light
Game type: Abstract / Strategic / Relaxing
Mechanics: tile placement, pattern building, perspective scoring, spatial planning
🎯 What is this game about?
Seikatsu (生活) is a Japanese word meaning “life” or “everyday living.” And that’s exactly what this game is like — quiet, attentive, focused on small decisions that slowly come together into a meaningful whole. Together, you create a single shared garden. Each player views it from a different pagoda, and each perspective tells a slightly different story. You place tiles with birds and flowers, and the space gradually fills in, settles, and changes. This is a game about perspective — both literal and metaphorical.
One of the greatest pleasures of Seikatsu is that nothing feels random. The designer doesn’t use generic or accidental imagery, but carefully chosen, recognizable cultural motifs inspired by Japanese nature symbolism. The iconography is closely related to Hanafuda — the foundation of Japanese thinking about seasons, natural cycles, and the fleeting nature of moments.
In Seikatsu, birds and flowers work together to tell the story of the seasons.
Each bird carries its own meaning and is connected to a specific time of year:
Scarlet Tanager — energy and summer
Japanese Waxwing — winter, silence, and calm
Japanese White-eye — spring, gardens, plum and cherry blossoms
European Pied Flycatcher — autumn
Koi carp — luck, perseverance, and strength; a symbol of endurance through change
Completing this seasonal story are the flower wreaths, which — just like in Hanafuda — correspond to months and seasons: plum, cherry blossom, iris, chrysanthemum. Each bird “belongs” to its season, and over time the garden begins to resemble a calm, rhythmic calendar of nature.
🎯 Goal of the game
During the game, you place identical birds next to each other, forming small flocks that score points immediately. At the end of the game, it’s time for the flowers — and this is where the real magic happens. Flowers are scored in lines seen only from your side of the board. They don’t need to be adjacent; what matters is the largest set of the same flower type within a given line. What looks like a perfect arrangement to you may be completely average from someone else’s point of view. In Seikatsu, there is no single truth. It is a game of perspectives.
🃏 What does a turn look like?
During the game, Garden tiles are drawn from a cloth bag. After placing a tile and scoring bird flocks, you draw a new tile from the bag and keep it hidden from other players. The bag moves from player to player and determines turn order. A turn itself is very simple: you place a tile so that it either scores birds in your current perspective or sets up long flower lines for later, then wait for your next turn and draw a new tile. It’s one of those simple systems that quietly invites reflection — what will this garden look like in a few turns, from my side?
🌿 Why does this game work so well?
🌸 It’s easy to teach and very intuitive to play. Perfect both for people new to board games and for those who enjoy a moment of thoughtful planning.
🌸 The visual layer is deeply calming. The birds and flowers evoke the feeling of a Japanese park — a place where you simply exist, observe, and breathe a little slower.
🌸 The box itself is beautifully designed and thoughtfully organized. Every component has its place, nothing rattles or mixes — which means there’s no need to buy extra inserts, always a very pleasant surprise.
💀 Why might it not be for everyone?
This is not a confrontational game. There’s no blocking, attacking, or direct conflict. If you’re looking for loud emotions or intense rivalry, it may feel too gentle. Seikatsu consciously chooses calm.
✨🧀🍞 Cheesy Joke Corner 😄
Seikatsu reminds us that everything depends on perspective —
including how impressive your neighbor’s achievements really are 🌸😏
☕ My impressions
Seikatsu is a game I return to not for excitement, but for balance. Perfect for a quiet evening, for playing with someone who “doesn’t really play board games,” or whenever you’re in the mood for something beautiful and quietly intelligent. You can feel mono no aware here — an awareness of fleeting moments and an acceptance that you won’t see everything. And that’s exactly why every move matters.
🎯 Final score: 30/10
Quiet. Warm. Thoughtful. A game that gently reminds you that everything truly depends on perspective.
