Mycelia: Rapid Review
Information:
Player Age: 10+
Player Count: 1- 4 Players
Time to Play: 40 - 90Minutes
Year Published: 2024
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the VR Distribution.
Rundown:
Mycelia is a game focusing on the life cycle of mushrooms, including creating spores, mushroom growth, and decay. This game is an interesting combination of area control, tile placement, and tableu building. Players will be generating spores on the main board in order to fruit new mushrooms. When a mushroom has performed the spore action twice, it may be moved into a state of decay, therefore granting a special ability. Each mushroom player board can have numerous mushrooms in decay, however, if one player has a decayed mushroom in each of their five player boards, the game will immediately end and that player will gain a bonus five points. For a shorter game, 3-4 player boards can be used per player, and the player will only gain 3-4 points (respectively) for finishing the game.
Mushrooms:
Each mushroom stands out with their fantastic art, while including several crucial details. On the top right is the score you will gain at the end of the game if the mushroom has been either fruited or decayed, the bottom left is the spore cost and the resource types required; the bottom right has the number of spores that will be spread by a spore action, and the bottom of the card will show the decay action that will occur when the card is decayed.
Actions:
On your turn, you will choose two different actions from six options (some mushrooms will allow you to perform the same action twice). The six unique actions are; move, explore, spore, fruit, decay, and discover.
Move:
The mother mushroom piece can be moved up to two spaces. This cannot land your mother mushroom in the same space as another mother but it can move on to a space with an opponents mushroom. Each insect the player moves across or lands on will be picked up by the active player.
Explore:
To explore, reveal a tile from one of the two face-down tile stacks and add the tile to the board state so it shares an edge with another tile. If the tile has an insect symbol on it, one will be added to the centre of the tile.
There are four resource colours and each triangular tile has three wind directions, one per tile side. Black tiles count as a wild resource throughout the game
Spore:
The active player can verbally choose either one of their mushrooms, or their mother mushroom, to spread spores across the board. The mother mushroom will spread two spores and the other mushrooms will depend on the spore amount found at the bottom right of the card.
When spreading the spores you first have to roll the wind die to determine which direction the spores will spread in. Only the direction on the starting tile matters for this. The first spore will spread in the mushroom’s location and the remainder will follow a scatter spread like the diagram below. Each mushroom is only able to perform the spore action twice.
Fruit:
If you have spores in your control that are all connected in an uninterrupted network you can add in a new mushroom. To do this, spend the resources displayed on a mushroom card in your hand and add the mushroom onto one of the player boards. Now place that mushroom token onto one of the triangles that were used to fruit this mushroom. If you control a triangle with a mushroom, you can use other player’s spores to pay for the resources.
Decay:
If a mushroom has had the spore action occur twice, it can now be decayed. This involves moving the card to underneath the player mat and returning that specific mushroom token to the player mat.
Each mushroom will have either an immediate effect, ongoing ability, or an upgrade to that mushroom number when decayed.
Discover:
This action allows you to draw one mushroom card from the three revealed, or one from the top of the deck. The row will be refilled back to three after a card is taken. As a free action, you can spend one insect token to refresh the three revealed cards.
Free action:
There a several free actions you can do on a turn such as refreshing the card row (as previously mentioned); discard three mushroom cards to gain an insect token; spend two insects to move another player's mushroom to an uncontrolled location anywhere else on the board. Any insect can be spent together since they all count as the same token type.
Production:
Production on Mycelia is top-notch with a mix of thick cardboard and wooden components, and a precise insert that helps ease setup and tear down. This is all very surprising to me as I believe this is Split Stone Games' first foray. In particular, the art and style of the game stand out as the ‘board’ has an abstract feel and the art of the mushrooms is gorgeous.
Interaction:
Mycelia is a heavy interactive game. It is key for players to have uninterrupted groups of spores to effectively pay for the cost of new mushrooms, therefore, spore control is crucial. If a player has a mushroom on a tile, they gain control of all spores on that location. The one exception to this is that a mother mushroom trumps a standard mushroom, so if a location has a mother mushroom it will be the owner of all those spores. Players will be vying for control not only for spores for their own use, but also to block the spore network of another player.
Determination:
- Amazing art
- A well-produced and unique game from a first-time publisher, designer and artist.
- An interesting mix of many mechanics.
Mycelia is a game that instantly earned a place in my collection, along with a Go To Golden Seal. There are many aspects players have to juggle in pursuit of gaining enough resources to play mushrooms. This includes fighting for control of the spores, gaining new cards/adding triangles tiles to the board, and knowing when best to decay their mushrooms. It is pivotal to reframe from wasting actions as players only perform two actions on their turn and the end of the game is driven by the players (the game ends when a player has a decayed mushroom under each player board). As a player, you simply want to score the best mushrooms you can as fast as you can, while effectively using the decay abilities that the mushrooms grant. However, you want to time it right to maximise your score and interfere with opponent’s plans. If you love nature games and are looking for a unique addition in this theme, Mycelia should be an instant purchase.
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