Megaland: Review

Megaland: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Push Your Luck, Engine Building

Player Age: 8+ 

Player Count: 2 - 5 Players 

Time to Play: 20 Minutes 
Designers: Ryan Laukat, Malorie Laukat
Artists: Ryan Laukat, Noah Adelman

Publisher: Red Raven Games
Year Published: 2018

BGG Complexity: 1.94/5

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

Can you face which monsters the levels throw your way in order create your own thriving megaland? The objective is easy; you want to have the most coins at the end of the game. This is achieved by enduring challenging levels to gain treasures, then spending those treasures to create buildings that will either generate coins or give special abilities. These will help you to delve further into each level, returning with even more loot to spend.

Card Anatomy:

Treasures:

These cards will be awarded to you as you explore a level. Each reward card has a type and a number corresponding to the amount that can be found in the deck. These treasures can be used as a matching type to buy extra hearts, or as a non-matching group to buy buildings, where the non-matching amount will depend on the building card.

Levels:

Level cards will contain either monsters or safe locations. On one safe location (the treasure box) each player still in the level will be rewarded with an extra treasure.
The monsters, however, will do damage to any player still in the level based on the number of skulls they have on their card.

There is one exception to this where any monster with a jump symbol on the top left can be jumped over by a player using a jump token. The token must be used directly before the level card is revealed. This will result in that player taking no damage if the monster was able to be jumped. Make sure to time your jumps effectively.

The last card in this deck that needs to be discussed is the rabbit. If you are in the level and the rabbit is revealed you can trade exactly three carrot treasures that you have stored, for three new treasures from the top of the deck. This can be extremely effective as the carrot is the most common treasure and you can introduce variety into your treasure stash easily.

Buildings:

Each building costs a number of unique treasures, meaning no duplicates per building. This cost is shown in the top left of the building card. Each building will also have a special ability that may give you coins, jump tokens, a static ability or a night ability.

 Any building with a night ability will activate every round so it is good to construct these buildings early in the game.

Player Card and Heart Card:

The player card is a used to keep track of your character's health throughout the levels. It also identifies to players what the amount of each card is in the level deck.

The heart card explains to the player that they can buy an extra heart for the rest of the game by discarding a group of the same treasures. This would cost 2 of the same for the first extra heart; plus one extra for each heart after that.

Setup:

- Place in a row all of the buildings with a star in the top right corner

- Choose seven other buildings to complete the market
- Shuffle the level deck and place it next to the level tile, this is where the player pawns will be kept while the players are adventuring.
- Give each player a character, a player card and four hearts
- Shuffle the treasure cards and place them in a face-down pile
- Give the first player token to whoever most recently played a video game
- Make sure the tokens and hearts are within reach of all players

How to Play:

There are three phases to each round: run, buy and night. The game will keep going until one player has reached 20 coins, then whoever has the most coins at the end of that round is the winner.

Run the Level:

Let's start the adventure.
Firstly, place your character on the level tile to signify that you are in the level and have not bailed out. In this phase, all players will play in real time. Players have the option to remove their character from the level tile and take all of the treasures they have earnt so far before a level card is revealed. However, if you are staying in the level, you will first receive a treasure card, and announce whether you want to spend a jump token. The top level card is revealed and resolved. This card could be a monster that deals damage to all players equal to the amount of skulls on the card; it may be a safe card that gives each player an extra treasure, or does nothing at all.
This will continue until all players have fled or died. A player will die when they have taken damage equal to the hearts they have. When this happens they will fall; losing all treasures they have earnt this round and yet must reset at their player card. So be smart and careful, and don't push your luck further than what you need to.

Buy Phase:

Beginning with the first player you can buy any amount of buildings or hearts that your treasures will allow. The one exception is that the same building cannot be bought multiple times in the same turn.

Night Phase:

Multiple actions occur in this phase as it is essentially the cleanup phase before you can venture out again.
- The first player token is moved clockwise
- Any leftover treasures can be stored individually under your buildings (buildings can only hold one treasure card and any that cannot be stored is discarded)
- Any buildings with a moon symbol will activate their ability now
- Every player will reset themselves to full health
- Reshuffle the level deck
- Check to see if the game has ended, if  not then reset back to the first phase and rinse and repeat until one player has reached 20 points.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:
- The treasures and player card help to give you enough information to mitigate the luck. The levels have good benefits that can increase the desire to push your luck
- Combines engine building with push your luck to create a game in this genre that isn't filler weight
- Great insert and token tray

Cons:
- Some of the buildings don't feel unique enough, but this could easily be fixed with expansions

'Megaland' offers an advancement to push your luck games by adding the buildings to increase your chances of surviving. They have found a great combination of decisions for veteran gamers but still offers an easy and digestible rule-set for new players that helps keep this game approachable.
The combination of engine building and push your luck leads this game to earning a Silver Seal of Approval. This is a great addition to any collection where you are a fan of push your luck as well as a great introductory game for new players.

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