Machi Koro Legacy
Our two hits of Gen Con land on shelves this week. Perfect for game night. Have a blast playing with your friends or family!
The latest edition in the smash hit Machi Koro series, Machi Koro Legacy is an all new game that changes before your eyes as it unfolds with an amazing and surprise filled narrative arc.
No spoilers, so all we can say is the story is a tale of [redacted] based on the Japanese [redacted] that was created with input from Nobuake Takerube, and co-designed by Rob Daviau, the father of the legacy gaming system.
The Board Room Game Cafe. Sign in or Register. So, You think you know Machi Koro? It is indeed a whimsical land of amusement parks and cheese factories, but it's about to get truly of this world. Welcome to Machi Koro Legacy, the game where your beloved Machi Koro changes and expands right before your very eyes! In Machi Koro Legacy you play through ten different.
What I really like is that when Machi Koro Legacy is finished it's still a game...I can play over and over again.
—Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower
In Machi Koro Legacy you play through ten different games in a story-driven campaign where player choices shape the game as you play. No two games will be the same! Throughout the campaign, elements are added into the mix that will make you shriek with delight and think on your toes. Over time, an emergent narrative comes into focus, explaining this strange and mystical land that you all have stepped into. This culminates in an infinitely re-playable eleventh game that will be completely unique!
Available Now!
MSRP: $49.95
Players: 2–4
Age: 10+
Play Time: 30 min / level
Learn to Play Machi Koro Legacy
Tom Vasel Raves About Machi Koro Legacy
Mental Blocks is a frenetic 3D puzzle game like no other. Players must work together to solve 3D puzzles before time runs out! Each player has their own secret perspective to the puzzle, but everyone has a restriction: Some players can only touch certain blocks, others cannot speak. Variable levels and time limits make for family fun or game group brain burning.
There really isn't a game likeMental Blocks.
—Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower
Every person has a restriction: some players can only touch certain blocks, some can only touch certain shapes, some cannot speak. This leads to delectable disarray as player scurry to solve each puzzle in real-time to graduate to the next puzzle - each ramping in difficulty as you proceed.
Mental Blocks features two different modes (Family or Challenge) to fit everyone's tastes!
Available Now!
MSRP: $39.95
Players: 2–9
Age: 10+
Play Time: 10 min
Learn to Play Mental Blocks
Tom Vasel Loves Mental Blocks
What's a legacy game?Glad you asked. A legacy game's unique feature is that it is actually a series of play-throughs of the same game. After each game concludes, something changes, is added or removed from the game and that change carries over to the next play-through of the game. Thus you have (In theory.) a game that constantly changes and evolves according to player input.
Machi Koro Legacy is played over 10 games. We played games 1-5 in one night and in total all 10 games were played over 3 evenings.
I'm going to blog about all of the games in this post. Since at the time of writing, these blog posts are about a month behind the actual plays.
If you don't know anything about Machi Koro, you can read my blog about it here.
Have you read it? Good! Now you know all about Machi Koro.
The Basics
The original Machi Koro has 2 expansions, 'The Harbour' and 'Millionaire's Row'.
Generally we play Machi Koro with The Harbour.
As you would expect, the core mechanics of Machi Koro remain unchanged for the 'legacy' version.
If you didn't actually bother reading my blog about the main game: Here's a quick recap.
Machi Koro Legacy Vs Machi Koro
- The objective of the game is to purchase all the landmarks first. This is done with money.
- Money is accumulated by building up your city and profiting from this.
- In game terms, building up your city is done by purchasing 'establishment' cards from the available choice of cards in the main game area, called the 'market'. These cards are all numbered from 1-12.
- At the start of the active player's turn, they roll 1 or 2 six sided dice. Every card in the active player's city that has a matching number will then probably earn them money.
- Now the player can spend any money they have.
- There's bit more to it, but that's enough to be getting on with.
The legacy game
I can't really blog about the game in my normal format because the components and rules change throughout the game. So I'll just go through it as best as I can. I'm not going to extensively talk about the original, I'll try to just talk about any differences between 'original' and 'legacy
' versions.Machi Koro Legacy Review
Personal game board
Machi Koro Legacy Replayability
This is immediately different. In legacy, each player is given a game board that has the following:- Space for your settlement's name: Thus the tiny village of Townopolis was born.
- 4 tick boxes. 2 of these tick boxes are immediately ticked. These determine how many cards a player will will start the game with. In original, players start with the same 2 cards, a Wheat Field and a Bakery. But in legacy, each player is given a number of cards (Called Town Square cards.) from which they choose their starting cards. Initially players start with 2 cards, but as the boxes are ticked, they will start with 3 then 4 Town Square cards.
- A row of 3 spots for cards, with '5', '15' & '25' beneath them. These spaces are for landmark cards, which are put out at the start of a game. As each game is completed, the card on the '5' space is discarded and the other 2 landmark cards slide 1 space to the left into the cheaper spaces. A new landmark is then placed into the '25' space. There's also a 'communal' landmark card that is placed in the main playing area, this landmark is changed for every game. To win a game, players must buy all 4 landmarks. This is a bit different from original,.
- Triangular grid: On the right side of the board is a triangular grid. Players may spend actions 'filling' a triangle instead of buying cards. Filling in a triangle normally takes 2 or 3 actions. Triangles that are 'filled in' earn the player another new thing to the game - diamonds. What are diamonds (See below.)?
Diamonds are a new currency introduced in Legacy. Players can start a game with diamonds or acquire them during play. Some landmarks and cards can use diamonds for a benefit. But the main use of diamonds is to spend them to re-roll dice rolls.