Bitoku Unboxing and Components Review

Bitoku from Devir Games is one massive game. The box, not that big. The weight? So heavy. Although there was packing, the shipping weight on my single copy of Bitoku was 8 lbs, which is a lot for a game. And when it arrived and I began to unbox it all, I realized why this was!

Bitoku has a fabulous production value. All of the player pieces are made of wood, and coloured based on the games 4 primary factions. These pieces not only look fantastic, but they feel great too. They help provide a great table presence that will have anyone stopping to have a look. The production quality extends to all of the games cardboard pieces. There is quite a bit of cardboard in this game, but it’s all nice and thick, and feels really good to handle. This is not a bag building game, so the quality of the cardboard probably exceeds what would be necessary, but I’m happy to see another fantastic Devir Games production.

The board is also great, although quite large. The artwork on the board is both a strength and a weakness of the production. It looks fantastic, and again adds to the table presence, but it also is VERY busy and might be hard for people who want clear and concise locations to visit and perform actions. Things are clear, and the more you play the more you realize where everything is, but right away it’s very busy and very overwhelming.

The game uses a ton of difference resources as well that you will be spending on a variety of things. I fully expected these resources to be made of cardboard. Lots of games provide wooden player pieces, but resources pieces are often a premium upgrade. Not here. Devir has added little wooden tokens, screen printed as well, to the box for Bitoku, and once again it’s just a really great touch that I really appreciated.

The card quality in Bitoku is standard. They aren’t really nice like Stonemaier Games cards, but they are more than serviceable and I would argue do not require sleeving even if you plan to play this a dozen times or so.

Overall, if you love a nicely produced game, than Bitoku might be a nice option for you. This is a heavy game, although becomes easier as you understand what is going on. But I’ve always said a bad game is made worse by bad components. In the same way, a good game is made better by good components. This has those great components, so now to see how it plays!