Introduction

In Ascending Koi you are one of the many elemental koi in a Chinese garden on a transcendental journey of self discovery through the seasons from a fry to a dragon.

In spring, you place modular tiles to create paths that you travel along to gain food resources. By spending your resources you learn unique elemental personality traits specific for your koi which are in turn used to better influence each other and alter the pond.

In summer, the pond stops growing. You invest your food resources into higher states through color blending to earn advanced traits, and plan for the coming autumnal rains by drawing pond tiles for the next season.

In autumn, you reshape your world by placing autumn pond tiles on top of the spring tiles.

And in winter you prove yourself as the pond begins to freeze and your traits become fully actualized, until finally you become enlightened and race to the lotus tile to win by ascending as a master of your element!

Objective

You play Ascending Koi in seasons, turns and actions where you move your koi along paths that you create by laying and manipulating pond tiles. Along your transcendental journey, you face hardship and fortune that either results in gaining and exchanging food tokens. By exchanging food tokens using basic color theory and matching, you learn unique talents that help you on your journey. When your koi learns all its talents, your enlightened koi must race back to its birthplace to win the game.

How to win

You win by unlocking all your talents and moving to the lotus tile.

Mechanics