A breathtaking Japanese garden comes alive as rival festival organisers battle to light up the night.

Build bridges between islands. Raise pagodas. Call festivals under the glow of a thousand fireflies.

Firefly Festival is a network-building game set in a Japanese garden at night, where rival festival organisers compete for the most spectacular celebrations. The core puzzle is unlike anything else on the table: the height of each pagoda determines exactly how many bridges can connect to its island. Add a floor and you open new connections. Build a bridge and you close one off. That single constraint drives every decision in the game.

Four actions. Build Bridge. Build Pagoda. Hold Festival. Move. You can teach it in five minutes — but you'll be thinking about that festival you didn't call for the rest of the week.

When you hold a festival, every worker on connected islands scores for you — even your opponents' workers. You're never attacking anyone, but you're always watching, always positioning, always waiting for the perfect moment to celebrate what everyone else built. It's interactive without being combative, opportunistic without being mean.

If you've played Through the Desert, you'll recognise the DNA — simple turns, a shared board, and every placement rippling out to everyone else. Thirty unique character cards ensure no two games play alike, and the board transforms from empty islands into a sprawling, interconnected festival network that looks different every time.

2–5 players. Under 60 minutes. Stackable 3D pagodas with gold sōrin finials. The kind of game people are still talking about on the drive home.