Tsukiji market is a 2 player only, set collection auction game.
Title: Tsukiji Market
Year Published: 2025
Designer: Emanuele Briano
Publisher: Matagot
Players: 2
Game Time: ~20 minutes
Set-up Time: ~1 minute
Ages: 10+
Theme: Chefs bidding for fish at Tsukiji Market
Mechanisms: Auction, set collection, take-that..
How to win: Gain the most points by buying fish.
Game Description
Early morning at the Tsukiji market. The two best cooks of Tokyo are contesting the freshest fish. As new fish are unloaded from ships, each of them wants to have the first pick with the minimum offer.
How to play Tsukiji Market
A quick and concise how to play video for Tsukiji Market.
Main Mechanisms
You bid via a one shot auction for the fish so that’s the mechanism that drives the game.
You score for collecting fish in different colours, but it’s not exactly set collection. However, you can collect two Wasabi in one colour to double that colours score. Also, four Fast Knife icons to win the game outright.
USP
BGG has 61 games that are auction games and 2-player only. Also, this is one of two games set in Tsukiji Market.
Theme
Chef’s bidding for fish at Tokyo’s iconic Tsukiji Market. I don’t know how it all works there so I don’t know if thematically it transfers over. But I do know Chefs go there to pick up the best pieces of fish so it does make sense.
Setup & Rulebook
Put out the two weight cads and shuffle the deck in a weird way. Only takes a few seconds.
Components & Artwork
The cards are standard and the iconography is OK, not that is much to remember.
The art is bright and fun.
Ease of Teaching
The game is easy to teach with so few rules. As long as you can throw out between one and four fingers then you can play round to round learning as you go.
The hard parts are the scale movement and set bonuses.
Similar Games
Any easy-to-play two-player game, Tides of Time comes to mind first of all due to the tug-of-war aspect.
For one based in Japan, Hanamikoji is a winner.
Tsukiji Market Review
Positives
Quick game play.
The bluff/double bluff element is really fun.
It’s cheap and the wallet-sized game takes up no shelf space.
Negatives
Not a lot of game there outside of the bluffing.
It’s a bit bland and repetitive.
Tsukiji Market Round-Up
An average, cheap, tiny 2-player filler that you can use to determine the start player for your larger 2-player game.
Rating
I give it 5/10