Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Dave Reviews: UberLand

MegaLand

I was going to title this with 'Uber' and then whatever the German is for land, but it's just "land". So, we're off to a grand start.


MegaLand is, at its core, a press-your-luck game with mechanics that will be familiar to deck builder fans, even though there's no deck to build. It's also very easy to learn (maybe too easy). You play the role of what is, effectively, a video game character, starting with four health and needing to collect treasure by exploring places with loads of terrible monsters. Each monster will do one, two, or three damage to your character; the game is very explicit about how many of each card, including the ones that don't hurt you, is in the deck. In other words, each round is designed for you to count cards and determine what the best play is based on the odds.

After each draw, you decide if you want to stay in or take your treasures and run. If you leave, you get what you've collected; if you stay and get KO'd, you only get one (unless you buy effects that let you keep or take more). Part of the challenge is not just collecting more treasure, but collecting the right treasure. If you want to buy cards that give you points (technically coins, but you don't buy anything with them) and other abilities, you need sets of different treasure types; if you want to buy more health, you need sets of the same treasure type. The challenge in buying more expensive cards is thus amplified, since it gets harder and harder to collect treasures you don't already have, a challenge mitigated by the fact you can store one treasure on each card you've bought along the way. As with the monster deck, game is explicit about how many of each treasure is in the treasure deck—it's printed on each card—but the deck is sizable and makes card counting very difficult.

The abilities are varied but easy to understand. Some of them also require you to strategize in a certain way or have a certain read on your opponents. For example, one card lets you draw an extra treasure from the deck if you're KO'd. If you buy a few of those, it can be more valuable to risk a KO, or even push on when a KO is guaranteed, if you don't have a usable set of cards and drawing more might let you buy what you need. Another gives you bonus points if an opponent is KO'd, which is great if your opponents go for a self-KO strategy or simply take too many risks, but is a bit of a waste if they play safely.

On the downside, there are cards which give you guaranteed points every night (end of round). They instantly put the game on a timer, and if one person gets one ahead of everyone else, the other players are immediately playing catch-up the rest of the way. They're not a guaranteed win, but really, the timer aspect is the part that damages the fun. Most of the cards score points anyway. Why is it necessary to let people get freebies? When somebody has a lead, there's a certain enjoyable tension in wondering if they'll get those last few points they need to win, or if you might have a chance to catch up. The nightly point cards take that away. And, because of the treasure system, if three players each gather four treasures in the first round, it's quite possible only one of them will have the right treasures to buy a guaranteed point card.

It's really unfortunate, because the only other real criticism is that there was room for this game to have a few more cards and a few more good choices for what to buy. Right now, the game plays so fast, sharp people can do the math and either pull their character or press their luck in a couple of seconds. There's potential here to give players something that will make them slow down and think a bit, at least sometimes, about what they want to buy. That's not a game-breaking problem, though; all it does is reduce replayability. The timer cards may not be game-breaking, per se, but they put a major damper on the experience.

It's still not bad, still worth trying. If you're a fan, awesome. If you end up feeling similarly to what I've described, play again without the automatic point cards, see if you like it any better.

Score: $3.25 out of $5.00.

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