Makoto, which means sincerity” in Japanese, is a climbing card game with hidden depths and beautiful illustrations that show the journey of a Ronin through the countryside of Japan. Each player starts a round with a hand of cards that range from 1-16, and a number of cards are dealt face up in the center of the table as a “blind”.

The lead player of a round plays a combination a set of one or more cards of the same value or a run of at least three cards then players in turn either play the same combination (with at least one higher card) or pass, which does not remove you from the round. A four-of-a-kind a Kensei can be played over any combination and is beaten only by a higher Kensei. When all players pass in turn, the round ends, and whoever played last collects the played cards and leads the next round.

After playing on your turn, you can discard to the blind one card from your hand that’s lower than anything you played, or you can pick up cards from the blind as long as they’re the same value, lower than what you played, and at most the same number of cards you played.

When you’ve emptied your hand, you receive a bonus, with the bonus diminishing for those who go out later. After all but one person has gone out, players score for the cards they’ve collected but only for 2s, 5s, and 10s. After a certain number of rounds, whoever has the highest score wins.

Makoto is all about cleverly improving your hand cards and weighing when to continue playing versus when to pass.