This is a charming little city building game by Masao Suganuma and published originally by IDW and now by Pandasaurus. Yes, I know that this game is nearly 10 years old and has expansions I am not covering here and and indeed as a legacy version and a sequel game, but as a mainstay on my personal game collection and a game that I have snared many boardgame converts on I think that it deserves your attention. Machi Koro is and example of a game that does as thing does it very well and then normally comes to a conclusion before it outstays it’s welcome. You take on the role of the CEO of a company that is trying to develop a town. You have to marshal its limited resources to create a thriving commercial powerhouse. To this end you must create mixture of resource generation buildings from a centralised building market. The aim is to do that well enough that you can be the first player to afford to build the 4 very expensive Landmarks. The game uses a dice rolling mechanic a that randomises each turn which of the players city cards will generate cash. This means that while there are certainly better strategies than others a some luck is also required to win.
Vital Statistics
- Dice and Card game
- 2 to 4 players
- 30 mins to play
- Age range: 12 or older (box) A suitably motivated 8 year old can play this.
- Website: https://pandasaurusgames.com/products/machi-koro
Gameplay
The game takes place over a number of turns with each player starting their turn by rolling dice. The number rolled will determine which cards will generate money for every player this turn. The establishments that have a matching number trigger depending on the card colour. Blue coloured cards, the primary industries, will generate income for you on any player’s dice roll, while green coloured secondary industries will do so only on your dice rolls. Red coloured restaurant cards have a theft mechanic where they will take coins from the player rolling the dice, and the purple cards take coins from all other players but only on your own turn. Any money that needs to be given from player to player happens first with the paying players being resolved in counter-clockwise order that is from the rolling players right then proceeding round to their left. Only when the the player to player transactions are done a then money taken from the bank pile. This is because when players are out of cash their debts are cancelled, allowing them to keep all of that turns income from their blue or green cards. Once the money aspect has been dealt with the rolling player then has the opportunity to buy a card using that generated cash to add to their city to help them on future dice rolls. If you have the cash you may opt instead of buying a card to build one of the attractions that form part of your burgeoning town. With each attraction comes a new ability, for example the ability to roll more than one dice, which changes the number range available and therefore which cards are accessible. Play continues until a player has managed to build all of the attractions.
The unbox
10 to 15 minutes;
Most of the game is decks of cards which only require a little sorting out to make the ready for play. The token for the money come as die cut sheet and will require punching out before use. take this one slow as it is very easy to put small tears in the printed side if you rush this step. Some early versions of this game came with plastic tokens but not I think the IDW or Pandasaurus versions. The Pandasaurus 5th anniversary edition comes with plastic tokens.
The Set Up
5 to 10 min;
As with lot of marketplace based games the set up is directly related to how much care was taken with the pack away. Firstly you will need to give each player a starter set of cards. This can be identified by the golden yellow back as distinct from the teal of the marketplace cards. Then you must lay out the marketplace out in the centre of the play area. There are 12 stacks to place so us what ever configuration fits your play area. Find space or receptacle for the money token that can be placed withing reach of all the players and give each player 3 tokens starting money. Grab the two dice from the box and you are good to go. It is possible to set this game up in a 50cm square but more space allows for a more comfortable game.
The Pack away
5 mins:
This one is a quick one to pack away, gather the cards back into the market. Stack the market in three equal decks then place into three of the box’s card slots. Place all the starting cards, that is to say the cards with the golden backs, in the fourth deck space in the box. Sweep the coin tokens into the central well and then pop the dice back into their recesses in the box.
The Mechanics
There is a deck building component to the construction of the town. Deck builders with marketplaces give players the opportunity to refine a tactic for playing the game. the hard limit for that exploration is as always when the supply of a particular card or cards run out. This can make some of the game feel like a drag race when two player are looking to grab the same cards and are quickly stripping all the cards out of the market.
Balancing moment to moment earning and larger planned amounts in Your blue primary industries gain coins every turn and do give opportunities to gain income in between you turn but the green card have a multiplicative effect allowing a player to build a large potential earning on their own turn. The Red cards seem to carry the same player baggage as similar “aggressive” cards in other games, namely that polite players often skirt round the market not buying them until a single player breaks a purchases one, then table hawkishly descends and the market quickly bleeds dry of them and the green industry card them mitigates some of the pain of that dice role happening to you. the purple cards with their higher cost are often a casualty of players rushing to finish the game rather them squeezing their opponents further.
There are some players I have played with that have run entirely viable single die strategies, with them buying out the 6 and below cards exclusively and opting for a single dice each of their turns. With couple of good dice rolls they can be almost finished before other players even start to squeeze them with their 2 dice builds. Again this seems to be a feature of the limited market mechanic in that a single player can control the pace of the game once they have a near monopoly of a resource, so it important to watch what other player purchase habits are in the early parts of the game.
The Feel
This game has an quaint brightly coloured aesthetic. The artwork is pretty and helps the theme greatly. The necessity for the player to get the rolls a that they need to progress can lead to a slow start to the game for some players that can lead to an impossible to recoup gap in coin totals. It is entirely possible to know that you have lost the game and to still need to play the remaining 15 to 20 minutes waiting for the leading player to succeed. This is a game with a high level of randomness and can be frustrating for stronger players if come to this boardgame with in a highly competitive mindset. The player interaction is really only in the form of the red and purple cards, which allow players to extract money from other player rather than the bank, but this is rarely enough of a drain to puncture the overall positive deck builder style vibe. The game is a drag race, but with some nice scenery.
Accessibility
No real notes here. The coinage can be fiddly if left in the well of the box insert. Most of the rules are on the cards themselves.
Components
In the box are 60 coin tokens in one, five and ten denominations, 2 dice, a deck of 108 cards and the rule book. The printed materials have pretty visual style reminiscent of Japanese graphic art. As I said earlier some version of this game come with plastic coin tokens and some with card coin tokens. I tend to avoid plastic components when I can but your mileage may of course vary.
Awards and Nominations
- 2015 Spiel des Jahres Nominee
- 2015 Guldbrikken Best Family Game Nominee
- 2015 Fairplay À la carte Winner
- 2015 Boardgames Australia Best International Game Nominee
- 2015 As d’Or – Jeu de l’Année Nominee
- 2014 Lys Grand Public Finalist
- 2013 Meeples’ Choice Nominee
Final thoughts
This is a great game to play with younger players and new players of boardgames. In this context the randomness of the game can generate a a few surprising wins for players once they have grasped the rules. There is normally some good engagement as there are often chances to earn coins on opponents turns keeping player in the game from turn to turn. This is also quite a nice opener as the low rules overhead and low complexity are great in that settling down to game part of the evening.
Like I said at the top of this piece, I have a had a copy of this game for a very long time, and break it out when I am trying to show new players some of the breath of game experiences that have occurred over last couple of decades.
