Don't overtake the boats, overtake their water: Tornado Splash

On a sales page written in his own hand, a gentleman from Kyoto introduces himself like this: “a middle-aged guy.” Then he lists what he’s packed into the game. The maneuvering period before the start. The flying start. The straights, the turns. All in just one lap.

His name is Adisawa Moyuki, he draws his own illustrations, and for years he has brought a table to Game Market, the Japanese fair for self-published games. His catalog is almost entirely sports: two baseball games, one basketball, one sumo, and a national farting championship. He doesn't look for themes. He takes races apart.

Since 2022, that game existed only where he was: his online shop, his table at the fair. Try explaining to a stranger, while standing up, the minute and forty seconds in which six pilots steal the lane before the start. Then do it all day long. Then remake the game from scratch: he puts the second version up for sale as “the improved version of Tornado Splash 1 (out of print).”

Arclight didn't republish it exactly as it was. One pilot disappears: in the box, the boats remain six, but the players become five. But the reason they wanted it wasn't the theme, and that’s the first thing you notice when opening the lid. There is no board.

You lay down the circuit yourself. One card at a time, in front of your pawn: the same card can be placed in two ways—straight if you want to race, turned if you need to turn. Then you advance three spaces. The played cards are not removed.

They stay there, and from that moment on they are no longer yours. They are water: behind a speedboat, the water remains swollen and broken, and anyone who passes through it loses momentum. The Japanese news outlet Broad.tokyo, on the day of the announcement, put it in the headline: reproducing the wake with cards.

As the race goes on, the older cards are collected and the track closes behind, like water does. In front, however, it grows, and eats up the table. Those who measured the self-published version speak of seventy centimeters by forty—more than a playmat. On the store edition, nobody claims anything.

At the table, you can tell by how people keep their hands: raised, so as not to move the track that someone just placed. Then comes the moment when you look at the most convenient card for you, and you realize it’s the worst gift for the person following you. The race ends, and that mess stays there. And it resembles something precise.

When the race is over, an oval of cards remains on the table, with two cylindrical markers planted in it. They are the buoys. And they come from there: from kyotei, the powerboat races on which people bet legally in Japan. Twenty-four venues, an oval in an artificial basin, six boats, three laps, two minutes.

In reality, a buoy is a red and white float almost a meter high, the point where six trajectories become a single line. The two buoys are three hundred meters apart, and each must be rounded three times. Everything is practically decided around the first one: the educational site kyoutei-navi puts it bluntly—the inside lane wins about half of the races. Those who are behind find the return wave of those in front and cannot push.

The game takes that physics and rejects the verdict. There is broken water, there is the advantage of the inside, but those who fall behind draw more cards. And that is why a thirty-minute box works well with four players: in the end, no one was looking at the pawn ahead. Everyone was looking at the mess it was leaving behind.

Of all the races I put on a table this year, this is the only one where losing ground gives you something back—and it was written by a gentleman from Kyoto copying a sport that never did.

In short — Tornado Splash (Tornado Splash 2 in the self-published versions) is a board game for 2-5 players, aged 8 and up, lasting about 20-40 minutes. It was designed by Adisawa Moyuki, illustrated by yamamori, released in 2025 by Arclight Games, and published in Italy by MS Edizioni.

Sources · Tornado Splash 2 sales page written by the author on his BOOTH shop · Moyuki Adisawa's exhibitor page on the Game Market website · The official Arclight Games product page, with the turn sequence · The retail edition announcement published by Table Games in the World in April 2025 · The Arclight Game Award 2023 report on Table Games in the World · The launch news from Broad.tokyo, "reproducing the wake with cards" · The official BOAT RACE glossary entry for "turning buoy" · The official BOAT RACE glossary on flying starts and refunds · The kyoutei-navi beginner's guide on win percentages by lane · Tabletop Gaming's list of the hottest games of Essen 2025 · Geekscape's report on sold-out titles at SPIEL 2025 · The user review of the self-produced version on Bodoge Hoobby, with the table measurements · The Tornado Splash page on BoardGameGeek · Where sources were unavailable, I did not fill in with my own words.