Sushi Go Party! is not a hard game to score. It is a game where the scoring happens at three different moments, and almost all the confusion comes from mixing them up.
Get those three moments straight and the rest is arithmetic you can do out loud.
The three moments
| When | What scores then | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| Immediately, mid round | Uramaki only | Somebody announces they hit 10 and takes points right now |
| End of each round | Everything except desserts | Three times a game, and then those cards are gone |
| End of the game | Desserts only | Once, after round three, from cards you have been collecting all evening |
That middle row is the one people get wrong. Your appetizers do not carry over. Two tempura at the end of round one score 5 and then that is it. Starting round two you have nothing.
Desserts are the exact opposite. They sit in front of you from the moment you take them until the game ends, and nothing in between touches them.
Scored at the end of each round
Nigiri is the simplest thing in the game. It is worth 1, 2 or 3 depending on the type, every time, no conditions.
Sets you build on your own. These only look at your own cards:
| Dish | Scoring | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Tempura | Two of them are 5 | One on its own is worth nothing at all |
| Sashimi | Three of them are 10 | Two are worth nothing. This is the big one |
| Dumpling | 1, 3, 6, 10, then 15 for five or more | No trap. Every single one helps |
| Eel | One is minus 3. Two or more are 7 | Taking exactly one costs you points |
| Tofu | One is 2, two is 6, three or more is 0 | A third tofu destroys the other two |
| Onigiri | By different shapes: 1, 4, 9, 16 | Four of the same shape are worth 1, not 16 |
| Miso Soup | 3 points | Discarded if anyone else plays one the same turn |
| Edamame | 1 per opponent who also has edamame, up to 4 | Worth nothing if nobody else takes any |
Competitions against the table. These compare your pile to everyone else’s:
| Dish | Scoring |
|---|---|
| Maki | Most 6, second 3. With 6 to 8 players: most 6, second 4, third 2 |
| Temaki | Most 4, fewest minus 4. No penalty in a 2 player game |
| Soy Sauce | 4 if you have the most different coloured cards at the end of the round |
| Tea | 1 point per card in your biggest single colour set |
The multiplier. Wasabi does nothing by itself. The next nigiri you play goes on top of it and is worth triple. One nigiri per wasabi, and a wasabi you never use is worth nothing.
Scored immediately: uramaki
Uramaki is the one dish that breaks the pattern, and it is worth understanding before you sit down with a menu that contains it.
Each uramaki card has icons on it. The moment your icons reach 10, you score straight away: 8 points for the first player there, 5 for the second, 2 for the third. Then you discard those cards.
So it is a race with three prizes and no consolation. Fourth place gets nothing and has spent the round collecting cards that turn into zero.
The rulebook also settles the awkward case: if several players hit 10 or more on the same turn, the highest total of icons wins the tie. If they are still level, both take the full points for that place and the next place is skipped.
Scored at the very end: desserts
Desserts are dealt into the game on a schedule. Before each round the rulebook shuffles a set number of them into the deck:
| Players | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 to 5 players | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 6 to 8 players | 7 | 5 | 3 |
So they get scarcer as the game goes on. The pudding you did not take in round one is not coming back in round three.
| Dessert | Scoring at the end of the game |
|---|---|
| Pudding | Most 6, fewest minus 6. No penalty in a 2 player game |
| Green Tea Ice Cream | Four of them are 12 |
| Fruit | Per type: none is minus 2, then 0, 1, 3, 6 and 10 for five or more |
Fruit is the one that surprises people, because having none of a type costs you 2 points. You can finish a game of Sushi Go Party! on a negative dessert score without ever doing anything wrong, just by never picking a fruit up.
How to score a round, in order
Do it in this order and you will not miss anything.
- First, the competitions. Compare everyone’s maki, then temaki, then soy sauce if they are in play. These need the whole table laid out, so do them while nobody has touched their cards.
- Then each player’s own sets. Go round the table one person at a time: tempura in pairs, sashimi in threes, dumplings on the scale, and so on.
- Then nigiri, with the wasabi on top. Leave this to last so you do not forget to triple one.
- Move the pawns on the score track.
- Discard everything except desserts. This is the step people forget. Desserts stay in front of you.
A worked round
Four players, the My First Meal menu, end of round one. Here is what one player has in front of them.
| Cards in front of you | Scores | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 2 tempura | 5 | A pair is 5 |
| 2 sashimi | 0 | You needed three. Two are worth nothing |
| 1 wasabi with a 3 nigiri on it | 9 | Three tripled |
| 1 more nigiri worth 2 | 2 | On its own, no wasabi left |
| 1 miso soup | 3 | Nobody else played one that turn |
| 4 maki icons, the most at the table | 6 | Most maki is 6 |
| 1 pudding | not yet | Desserts wait until the end of the game |
Round total: 25. The pudding stays on the table and does nothing until after round three.
Now look at what the two sashimi cost. A third one would have turned 0 into 10, which would have been the difference between 25 and 35. That single decision is most of what beginners are actually learning in their first game.
The five that cause arguments
- Two sashimi are worth nothing. Not half. Nothing. The same goes for one tempura.
- Appetizers reset between rounds. Your two sashimi from round one do not combine with the one you get in round two.
- Wasabi only triples nigiri. Not the next card. Nigiri.
- Eel on its own is a penalty. Minus 3 is the only way to lose points from an appetizer, and new players take one without thinking.
- The fewest can be punished. Temaki, pudding and fruit all take points off the player at the bottom. Ignoring a dish is not neutral.
All five of those are printed on the menu tiles sitting on the board. That is what the tiles are for, and pointing at one settles an argument faster than finding the rulebook.
The rule I always have to explain twice is how some dishes score depending on how many you collect. Eel is the classic example: one eel costs you 3 points, but two or more are worth 7.
Tofu is even worse. One is worth 2, two are worth 6, and three or more are worth nothing. Four tofu do not count as two pairs.
Compare that with tempura, where every pair scores 5, so four tempura are simply worth 10. That difference between tofu and tempura is what trips people up.
What to read next
- Sushi Go Party! menu cards explained, if the 22 tiles are what is confusing you.
- Is Sushi Go Party! good for beginners?.
- Sushi Go Party! in the beginner hub.
- Easy board games for beginners, the main hub.
How this article was written
Every number above is taken from the official Gamewright rules of play for Sushi Go Party!, including the uramaki tie breaker and the dessert schedule. Nothing here is from memory or from a wiki.
I have played this game many times, physically and on Board Game Arena, though my original copy is Sushi Go, my brother’s version.
Using the Amazon links in this article helps me keep working on Board Game Newbie, at no extra cost to you.