MYTHOTOPIA
A Game for 2-4 Players
by <PERSON>
Mythotopia? OK, let's talk about Mythotopia.
1. AWKWARD INTRO BIT
<PERSON> is clearly doing the whole iterative-development thing, with a whole bunch of the ideas of A Few Acres of Snow mixed in with a bit of A Study in Emerald with the whole thing smeared onto a map from Small World run several times through a Photoshop filter simply called "dinge."
So I really like A Few Acres of Snow, despite its considerable flaws, in much the same way one likes a gorgeous funny charming soulmate type who's struggling with a serious drinking problem -- the good stuff is so blissful that sometimes you feel like you can ignore the nagging voice in the back of your head that this may not be the right person to pick out curtains and haggle over baby names with. I was less enamored with A Study In Emerald, which was more of the manic depressive/witty conversationalist/in love with the sound of their own voice/doesn't pick up on social cues to get out of said conversation/underemployed/enthusiastic starter of ambitious projects that somehow don't get followed through on type.
Wait -- that last bit sounds a lot like me. Does this mean I give myself a 5? The mind boggles.
2. I PUT MY OPINION UP FRONT BECAUSE SAVING THE TIME OF YOU, THE READER, COMES FIRST
Anyway, to awkwardly wrench this back to the topic at hand, Mythotopia promises to liberate us <PERSON> fanbois from the tyranny of depressingly degenerate strategies a la AFAOS and/or brilliant-in-theory-agonizing-in-practice endgames a la ASOE. Does it work? I state, with all the booming authoritative voice born of three whole plays of the thing: yes. Mostly. It further puts itself forward as a twist on the deckbuilding formula for those of us who latched on to Dominion with the bright-blue-flame zeal of a backwoods revivalist preacher but were of the opinion that all subsequent deckbuilders -- sacred cows Ascension and Star Realms very much included -- missed the point in one critical way or another. Is it a worthy successor to the legacy of Dominion? I state, authoritative voice, three plays, etc.: yes. 118
Mostly. Have I and my tablemates had fun playing it so far in those three whole plays? I state, authoritative voice, three plays, etc.: Yes. Is it a game that in a just and fair world would be a massive tide-altering hit due to accessible gameplay, fun interaction, and exciting fantasy setting? I state, etc.: REPLY HAZY ASK AGAIN LATER.
Ahem.
3. AN ALMOST TOO PERFUNCTORY RULES SUMMARY
At the heart of Mythotopia is two decks of cards -- one deck comprising one card per province on the board, some of which are randomly dealt to players, each of which have one resource symbol (gold, stone, food or armies), and another consisting of Improvement cards which can be drafted by players in exchange for gold, of which a random assortment of sixteen are present (one of each, none of your Dominionesque 10-card piles here) in any game, which typically have one or more resource symbols on them, or if not, have some sort of awesome power. In a typical turn, you have a hand of five cards, and you choose two actions (from a somewhat intimidatingly long Chinese menu of the things), most of which require the play of one or more cards from your hand. Once you've taken and resolved your two actions, your used cards are confined to the discard pile, and your draw back up to five cards. (Cards unused in your hand stay in your hand, which can suck if you have a fistful of grain and nothing to do with it.) You score 3 points for each province you own, and you can stack a whole mess of VP chips for building stuff or doing stuff -- the specific nature of these VP rewards being partly determined by which scoring criteria are randomly drawn from yet another deck of cards.
4. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT YOUR FLAIR
It's cheap and easy to talk about theme like it's just the frosting on the cakey goodness of mechanically sound games. (Plenty of people who are seriously into well-regarded Euro games, or [god help them] abstracts, apparently feel this way -- if you can discover a narrative in <PERSON>, you're a better man than I, <PERSON>.) Cheaper and easier still to take the line that equates greater or lesser theme to the sheer number of references to <PERSON> per cubic centemeter of box. 629