Okko Chronicles

Cycle of Water: Quest Into Darkness.

The original Okko game (Era of the Asagiri) was a simple little tile-based skirmish game with some lovely metal miniatures (sold separately), but this new Kickstarter-funded use of the French property by Red Joker goes full-on boardgame. There’s a bit of investigation as the heroes try to discover which of the palace courtiers is actually the evil master oni (demon), a natty card-based system for varying the stats and abilities of both heroes and bad guys that requires some interesting choices, a good combat system with exploding dice, and a varied stack of scenarios (with even more in the expansions, along with extra miniatures). It’s an interesting and enjoyable game with some clever little systems, and the artwork, design and miniatures are all excellent. Which makes it even more of a shame that the initial release was plagued with rulebook problems that spoiled the experience.

Finally, after a couple of years someone realised that there had been fundamental rules translation errors in the original rulebook. Version 2 of this summary is a complete rework from scratch using these new rules and the last FAQ, and now I think you’ll find it far easier to enjoy this rather good game as it was meant to be played!

Update Log

Date Version Changelog
Feb 2023 2.2 Some more small clarifications throughout
Jan 2023 2.1 Small clarifications throughout
Aug 2020 2 Complete rework based on redone rules
Jul 2019 1.4 Fixed incorrect rule in English rulebook about moving target to an adjacent space after a melee attack
Jul 2019 1.3 Two small movement errors fixed
Jul 2019 1.2 Clarified setup of courtier clue cards and mentioned that you can’t fight diagonally through doorways
Jul 2019 1.1 Fixed movement error and error about oni reveal in round 8
Jun 2019 1 Original release

16 Comments

  • treib0r says:

    Very nice work! Is it possible to offer a sheet without the coloured background? That would be more ink-friendly 😉

  • treib0r says:

    I´ve found two typos:
    1. Movement – “move through a number of adjacent spaces equal to speed” –> shouldn´t it be “adjacent areas equal to speed”?
    2. Wound cards – “… must also play play an action card” –> play is twice.

  • Marc MAIRET says:

    Est il possible d’avoir cette aide en Français ?

    • I’m sorry, I don’t speak French, and if I started supporting and hosting translations it would double my workload. But you’re welcome to translate it yourself! 🙂

  • Burkhard says:

    Hello,
    we used your reference sheet yesterday, it was a great help, because the rulebook is mess 🙁
    You might add two informations too the sheet:
    – by paying two event cards you will spawn new troops (this information is only on the Corrution Track)
    – you might add on the small hand out to flip condition tokens at the end of the turn

    Thanks for all yor work 🙂

  • Hi Burkhard, glad you found it useful. The paying event cards to spawn troops is pretty clearly marked on the corruption track, I don’t think it really needs to be in the rules. And the flipping of condition tokens is already on the reference sheet in the End of the Round Phase section.

    • Burkhard says:

      Yes I know, that this is on the corruption track, but this action is so important, that it should be mentioned in the rules/handout 😉
      I know that the flipping is on page 4 of your handout, but we mainly used page 6 and flipping is an easy to miss rule.

      I am very thankful for the work of all your handouts 🙂

  • CK Lai says:

    Hi, UH!

    The rules are in an even worse mess now as it’s been discovered there are some serious discrepancies between the French and English rules (lazy translator or careless graphic designer) dropped/lost several sentences of very important rules! Example: you can make one OR two accusation during the end of phase, not one OF two… things like that ‍♂️

    The players on BGG are pushing Red Joker to finalise a new set of errata/FAQs. Will update you once it’s done.

  • CK Lai says:

    New FAQ and rulebook are out on BGG.

    TL;DR:
    1. The Final Battle is triggered when the heroes: Correctly guess the disguised Oni’s identity OR make the 3rd incorrect Accusation OR fail to guess the Oni’s identity by the End of Round Phase of Round.
    2. If final Battle was triggered by a 3rd incorrect accusation, the Corruption Track may still be used. Otherwise, not.
    3. May make one OR two accusations but cannot be the same type.
    4. Make a Sneak test when moving onto or in a Prohibited tile.

    May be smaller corrections and adjustments but these are the big ones that change the game play.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.