Title: Mycelia
Designed By: Daniel Greiner
Art By: Justin Chan
Published By: Ravensburger
Released: 2023
Player Count: 1-4
Time to Play: 45 Minutes
Ages: +
Overview:
Mycelia from Ravensburger is an adorable light-weight deck builder that is the perfect gateway game to introduce new gamers to the deck-building mechanic. Players draft cards with various actions that allow them to build a deck of cards to remove all the dewdrops from your forest floor. The first person to get rid of all their dewdrops wins!
What's purr-ty cool:
Great Gateway Game
If you have never played a deckbuilding game before, or are looking for one to teach to other people, Mycelia is a really good choice. Players all start with the same small deck of cards. On your turn, you draw 3 cards and play all of them in whatever order you want. Actions allow you to move or remove dewdrops, gain leaves (coins) to buy new cards, or destroy cards in your deck.
Once a player has used all their available cards, they can choose to buy new cards for the deck by spending their leaves. What's really nice about the add cards to deck mechanic of Mycelia is that any cards purchased go on top of your draw pile, not into your discard pile. This guarantees you will draw them next turn. This is perfect for newbies to get used to how different cards work, and to try and buy cards at optimal times, rather than having to think of how a card might be helpful in their deck many turns later.
Players can then take basic actions that they have available at any point during their turns. Some cards even allow you to get extra basic actions throughout the game which allows for increased flexibility with your turn.
There is a bit of symbology to learn on the cards, but once you are familiar with the handful of symbols gameplay speeds up because you don't have to take as long to read all of the cards. Once players know the symbols, this game is very limited language independent (besides the numbers for how many leaves you earn).
Player Engagement
While Mycelia is a turn-based game, where players take their turn, and then play passes to the next player, turns are pretty quick so there is not a ton of downtime while other players go. Some card actions actually offer benefits to other players as well. This is indicated by the three-mushroom symbol on the card. Some of these effects happen when a player plays a card and others happen when a player buys a card. I found this to be a good way to keep players engaged and paying attention to the game during other players turns
Purrrty Art and Components:
Mycelia from Ravensburger is easily one of the cutest games I have played recently. I think I have pack bonded with the little mushroom people. If you want a game that makes your cuteness aggression come out, Mycelia is it! I wish I had a plushie of each of the mushroom people so I could squeeze them all day long. The fire starter guy is my favorite (his flavor text says "Curiosity burned the mushroom" lol), but there are so many good options. But honestly, each mushroom hero is cuter than the last.
The game also has a fun table presence due to its 3d tree stump shrine structure where dewdrops get placed after they are removed from players' forest floors. The game is played over rounds and once enough dew has collected on the shrine, it rains and a player gets to spin the wheel in the middle and all the dewdrops come tumbling out, like dice in a dice tower. It's satisfying and fun.
The cat's meow:
"Mom has better watch out for me when the rain falls, or those dew drops are going to be all over the floor!" - Solo the Spokescat
Disclosure: Pudgy Cat Games was provided a copy of this game in exchange for a review, however, this review reflects the honest thoughts of the author.