Windfall Street

You can't earn a single point on your own.

Build shelves along a little shopping street. Whenever a rival passes under your shelf, a rice cake drops into your hands (+1). If they stop right under it, even better (+3). Your own moves never score — you win by guessing where everyone else will go.

Everyone's remaining move cards are open. Read them, place your shelves where rivals must walk, and bait them into stopping.

How to play

1. Play a move card (Nap, 1, 2 or 3) and walk clockwise around the street. Nap means you stay put. Once you've used all four cards, you get them all back.
2. Collect rice or beans where you stop.
3. Pay Rice 1 + Beans 1 to build a shelf on your square, or add a tier to your own shelf (up to 3).
4. When a rival passes your shelf you get +1. When they land on it you get +3, and the shelf loses a tier.

The trick: everyone's remaining cards are face up. Count forward from each rival's piece to read where they will stop next, and put your shelf there.

Features

• 2–4 players: you + 1–3 CPU opponents, each with a different play style (Dodger, Baiter, Greedy, Random).
• A match is one game per player, with the turn order shifted each game. About 10 minutes for 2 players, 20–40 minutes for 3–4 players. You can save and resume.
• Rules take a minute to read, and a short tutorial walks you through your first turns.
• Pieces are told apart by animal faces as well as colors.
• English and Japanese — switch at the top right of the title screen.

Controls

• Mouse or touch. Tap a move card to see where you will go and who scores, then confirm.
• Playback speed (Normal / Fast / Skip) and Pause are under the board.

Development status

This is a prototype. Rules and balance may still change. Comments on what felt fun, confusing or unfair are very welcome.

About the title

The title comes from the Japanese proverb "tana kara botamochi" — a rice cake falling off the shelf, meaning a lucky windfall.

Credits

Game design and development by Mtmaru. Code, text and SVG art were written with the help of Claude (AI).

More games by Mtmaru

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• Backroom Deals — Win the meeting before it starts. A card game of office politics.
• Who Ate It? — Someone ate your pudding. A share-house card game of sneaky snacking and finding the culprit.