Take a Relaxing Stroll Through Jokkmokk: The Winter Market

Take a stroll through a Swedish winter market, eating tasty food, picking up souvenirs, and enjoying friends and the winter night.

Published by WizKids, Jokkmokk is a 45-minute game, designed for 1-5 players, ages 12 and up. It’s a set collection game that offers different ways to score each time you play.

Gameplay

The board is placed in the center of the table. It shows a series of card slots going around the edge of the board (the center is used for scoring at the end of the game). Each player takes two meeples of their player color. All meeples are placed in a row on the board on the empty card slots. The current player token is placed on the card slot in the back of the row of meeples. Next, players choose which card sets they will be playing with. There are eighteen different sets. There are a few requirements for choosing sets, but players can mix and match which sets they wish to play with, and the rulebook also suggests different sets that combine well together.

Once they are selected, you take the chosen sets, each of which has morning cards and evening cards. You shuffle all the evening cards together and then you shuffle all the morning cards together. You place one morning card face-up on each empty card slot around the board (only slots with no meeples or the current player token on them) and then are ready to begin the game.

The player whose meeple is farthest back on the board goes first. On your turn, you may move your meeple forward to any card. You then claim that card and place it in front of yourself, leaving your meeple on the slot where that card was. You then move the current player token forward to stand behind the next meeple who is now furthest behind on the board. If the current player token passes over any cards when being moved forward, they are discarded from the game. You then fill each empty card slot with a new card from the morning deck, so at least one new card gets placed every round. It is now the turn of the player whose meeple is farthest back on the board (it is possible for a player to have two turns this way).

Players continue going around and around the board, collecting cards. Once the morning deck runs out, you start drawing cards from the evening deck. A few card sets have a first scoring around this point, but most of them only score at the end of the game. Each card set is unique and has its own scoring mechanics.

Once both decks have run out and all cards have been claimed or discarded, players count up the points across all their collected cards. Ties are broken by who is farthest behind on the board. The player with the most points wins.

Review

Jokkmokk is a great combination of simple actions and a scoring system that makes those actions meaningful. With the wide range in which the different card types score, there’s a lot of different strategies you can go towards and different cards you can prioritize. The player with the most cards collected isn’t necessarily going to win, so skipping over cards is sometimes key to getting those big points. But you also don’t want your opponents to have too many more turns than you if you always come late in turn order.

There is a handy reference card for each of the card sets, as well, so you pull out the ones you’re playing with at the start of the game, and they do a great job of quickly catching everyone up on how each one scores. You might expect that you have to keep being reminded while playing the game, but we found them fairly easy to keep track of. It does mean there’s a bit of set-up time though, if you’re picking out the cards or trying to search for the right ones.

The theme is quite nice, too. It’s something that is not so Christmas-y that you’re never going to want to play this game at other times of the year, but it’s also very cozy and perfect for the holidays. The game also looks lovely, with some very festive and colorful artwork. It can take up quite a bit of table space depending on player count, and if you’re playing with some card sets that have special tile-laying mechanics.

There’s not much bad to say about Jokkmokk. It has a lot of replay value, is nicely put together with rules that are easy to learn, and can appeal to a wide range of experience levels.

Pros: Variety in the card sets, range of scoring mechanics, simple and fast gameplay

Cons: A bit of setup time, can take up a lot of table space

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of these games.