The Manhattan Project Get your Official t-shirt!
Before this game came out, I had heard about the real Manhattan Project. We had read about it in school, as it is important history, and I knew enough to sound smart at cocktail parties: “Oh, that nutty <PERSON>, right?” So when this game was announced, I didn’t really know much about it beyond the topic of making atomic bombs. It wasn’t until some art was posted that I decided it was a must have and immediately bought it, or at least pre-ordered it.
The Manhattan Project is a game where you race to build atomic bombs. From the BGG description: A power struggle at the beginning of an atomic age. A revolutionary new technology. Who will use it to build the deadliest arsenal and become the world's dominant superpower?
This game has really taken me by storm recently. Not only is a fun and vicious game to play, it also inspired me to read up a bit on the history of the original Manhattan Project and better understand what the game is about. As I did so, I realized that the theme drives much of the game mechanics. It’s very obvious that the design of the game originated from the theme.
And the theme is nuclear bombs!
Trinity and Beyond Clip
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The Theme
The theme is tightly wound into the mechanics of the game, so it makes teaching and playing the game very simple. You score points by building, testing, and loading nuclear bombs. Bombs are worth various numbers of points, and the first player to reach the victory point goal “becomes the world’s dominant super power and wins the game!”
In order to build bombs, you will need bomb fuel, scientists, engineers, and designs for the bombs. Like the real Manhattan Project, there are two completely different technologies available to produce bombs: those based on enriched uranium (like the bomb dropped on Hiroshima), and those based on plutonium (like the bomb dropped on Nagasaki). Plutonium bombs will be worth less until you test a bomb (like the Trinity test), and then afterward they will be worth more.
As this is a worker placement game, you will use workers to build up your production capabilities, recruit other workers, and gather the resources needed to design and build bombs. 118
To get bomb fuel, you will need to build enrichment plants or reactors, you will need to mine yellowcake, and you will need to find scientists from universities. You may also want to be build factories to improve your economy and produce fighters and bombers.
Rules are available here: The Manhattan Project rules
Things I like about it
Strong narrative arc. The gameplay has a very strong narrative arc to it as players start from scratch and slowly build up their production capabilities and expand their workforce, initially comprised of only laborers. In the mid-game, you will find yourself “running your engine” to produce the resources needed to complete bomb designs. Near the end of the game, there is a mad rush to get your bombs completed before your opponents, and the threat of damaging air strikes looms larger.
Innovative placement and retrieval mechanism. Unlike most workers placement games that have well-defined worker placement and retrieval phases, TMP lets you decide when to retrieve your workers. On your turn, you have a choice between placing workers or retrieving workers.
• When you choose to place workers, 1) you may place ONE worker on the Main Board, and then 2) you may place any number of workers on your own buildings.
• When you retrieve workers, you retrieve all of your permanent workers from the main board and buildings, remove all contractors from the main board, and all workers from your buildings.
Rulebook example of the worker placement action
Later on in the game, this creates an extra tactical element of tempo management as players alternate placing and retrieving workers, occupying key main board spaces during placement, or opening them up during retrieval. With this innovative mechanism, artificial jockeying for turn order suddenly disappears, and it creates a simpler play experience with no “game phases” for players to remember. Gauging when to keep placing workers and when to retrieve are critical tactical decisions during the game.
Permanent workers and contractors. In TMP, you have a potential for 12 workers in your own color: 4 laborers, 4 engineers, and 4 scientists.
There are also 12 grey contractors available, 4 of each type. Because of the unique worker retrieval mechanism, the contractors provide some very interesting tactical opportunities. Contractors are removed from the main board whenever any player retrieves their workers, so using a contractor on a valuable location means it may open up again for you or another player to use immediately.
Highly interactive. This is a wartime setting, so players canlaunch airstrikes at each other to destroy their air forces or damage their production capabilities. 792