Neotopia: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Tile Placement, Hand Management, Pattern Building
Player Age: 8+ Player Count: 2 - 4 playersTime to Play: 30 - 60 Minutes
Game Designer: Orlando Sá, André SantosGame Artist: Tiago Lobo PimentelPublisher: Arcane WondersYear Published: 2023BGG Weight: 1.95Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Player Age: 8+
Game Designer: Orlando Sá, André Santos
Introduction:
Neotopia is a pattern building game that has players adding element tokens into three shared regions to create patterns from project cards. Players will also score the largest cluster of elements matching their colour in each region at the end of the game, so having a presence of your element in each section is very important.
Game Anatomy:
Game Board:
The game board is separated into three regions, with one factory between each.
Element Tokens:
There are four elements in the game; sustainable energy (red), community (blue), technology (purple) and biofarming (green). These elements will be played into the three shared regions by all players during their turn, however, no one truly owns any of these elements. Players will instead score points from patterns created that match the cards they hold.
All players represent a particular colour, shown on their character card. They will have to keep their individual colour growing because at the end of the game, every region will score the largest cluster of each player’s colour.
Project Card:
Each project card has a pattern of symbols on the top of the card, and the points the player will gain after completion at the bottom of the card. Some cards have two sets of points, one for the matching coloured player and a larger value for the other players. This is because those cards specifically add a cluster of one element onto the region. The player who scores the cards that aren't their colour will score more as that player is populating this board with an opponents colour.
Throughout the game, players will draw these project cards from a display of four, called The Offer. This offer will only replenish at the end of a turn.
Production Tile:
The production tile will explain which elements are produced on the next empty factory. This tile is vital to planning ahead. If at any point on a turn a factory empties, it will be replenished by the four elements on top of the production tile.
Once this is done, that tile is discarded, although, the elements on the bottom of that tile will be placed on top of the next production tile.
Bonus Tokens:
Bonus tokens are gained from placing an element onto a certain space on the board, or by reaching 7, 13, or 18 points in any of the regions.
These tokens contain special free actions that will score 3 points each during end-game scoring if they aren’t used throughout the game.
The abilities are:
Government Subsidy - Draw two cards from the offer or the deck.
Automatisation - Gain one additional action this turn.
Private Initiative - Legally place an element from the reserve pile into any region.
New Building Permits - There are numerous half circles around the edges of the placement area for each region. As long as it is adjacent to an existing element, players can use their tokens to place in the half-circle area.
Setup:
- Shuffle the project cards and reveal a row of four cards.
- Place one element of each colour on the three factories.
- Each player is dealt a starting hand of three project cards.
- Each player chooses a colour then takes their card and the three scoring tokens. Each scoring token goes to the bottom of the score track representing each region.
- Shuffle all bonus tokens face-down and place four face-up at the circle near the discard pile for each region. Then place four on the indicated places in each region.
- Take the production tile with the flag face-up and place it in the centre of the board.
- Shuffle the remaining production tiles (removing 3 tiles with a meeple symbol for a two-player game, and 2 tiles for a three-player game).
- Place one element of each type on top of the stack.
- The player who most recently dreamed about the future takes the first player card.
- Each player, in turn order, will place one element of their colour into the centre of a region, or adjacent to a previously placed element.
How to play:
On a turn, a player can perform three actions on a turn made up in any order and duplication for the two following actions. These actions include drawing a project card from the offer or the top of the deck, and placing an element. Elements have several placement rules:
- It can only be placed in one of the two regions connected to the factory it was taken from.
- It must be placed adjacent to an existing piece or in the centre circle if it is the first placement.
- It must be placed on an empty circle, not a half circle unless a player has the new building bonus token.
When placing an element, if it creates the pattern on one of the project cards in your hand then you can place the bonus card in that region face-up. The only exception to this rule is that the projects must be diverse. This means the player cannot complete a project if the art matches the top card of the completed projects in that region.
When the card is played the player will score points for completing the pattern (shown on the card), they will gain these points in the region the card was played.
The end of the game is triggered when the last production tile is flipped over. The round will finish then each player will have one more turn. If there are no production tiles and a factory needs to be replenished, it will just be one of each element.
Scoring:
The scoring is a crucial element of the game. This is one of those games where I would probably teach scoring first.
Before scoring commences, each player will add a bonus score to each region. As there are three scoring tracks one for each region. This bonus score will be one point for each element in the largest cluster of adjacent elements in your colour, this score will be added to each region's score track, corresponding to the cluster of that region. After this, players will score points for their unused bonus tokens and they will score points equal to their highest and second-most abundant region as normal. The last region is particularly crucial as this region's score will be multiplied by three.
Final Thoughts:
- Chunky plastic element tokens that elevate table presence.
- Great rule-to-depth ratio.
Neotopia is a game with a great rule-to-depth ratio. Players can learn the game in minutes but, like a good abstract game, it takes time to master the different avenues of scoring. Neotopia requires players to focus on the end game scoring as it is paramount with the triple score in the third section, so making sure the regions are as equal as possible is essential. Additionally, players will score one point for each element matching their colour in the largest cluster in each region before the lowest scoring region is determined. During the game you may not need your colours to score project cards but having a good presence can drastically change your end game score. If you enjoy pattern-building games with an interesting board state then Neotopia will be a good addition to your collection.
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