WBG Score: 8.5
Player Count: 2-4
You’ll like this if you like: My City, Kingdomino.
Published by: BLAM !
Designed by: KOSMOS
This is a review copy. See our review policy here
This will be a spoiler free review.
My City was a big success for us. However, we stopped on game 21 out of 24. I will finish it one day, but it got a bit samey for us. I gave it a seven on BGG. You can watch me play the first three games here if you want. It's pretty spoiler free as its just the first three games. I liked the idea more than the game I think. My Island has a more interesting theme and it uses hex tiles instead of polyomino tiles which I have found a lot more palatable for my brain. But is it better? Do you need both? Let's get it to the table and see how it plays?
How To Set Up My Island
Each player will take a board, placed the main side up. The other side is the forever game to play incorporating rules from the first few chapters. Take the tiles with your chosen colour matching the symbol on the top left of your board and one cream cube, which you place on the ten space. Shuffle the deck of cards and place them into a central space. You are now ready to play.
This is the forever board side. This can be sued for infinite amount of games once you have finished the legacy side.
How To Play My Island
Flip the top card and each player will find the matching shape. This shape must be placed onto their board, with at least one hex starting on a beach. Subsequent shapes must touch a matching coloured hex and you can only place tiles onto the outer beach tiles and the inner heath spaces. If you ever cannot or do not want to place a tile you can leave it off your board at the sacrifice of one point. Each time you place a hex with an orange building icon on the beach you will instantly gain one point. And it is this simple for the first game. Keep playing until you deice you stop, which you can do at any point, or the cards run out. At the end of the round you will lose one point for any visible beach space still remaining, so this is your focus for game one.
Game two will work almost the same but now you will score three points whenever you place three or more green path hexes next to each other. Game three the paths now need to be five hexes or more long and they will now score you five points. And the next layer of hexes on the pam tree spaces can now be built on.
When you are done with this third chapter its time to open the second envelope which will give you new components and rules for the next three games. This continues through for the next eight envelopes and 24 games. The will be new components, stickers to add to your board, new rules, stickers, twists, and did I mention the stickers? There are a lot of stickers! in gams seven to nine I add six stickers all to the same hex!
Is It Fun? My Island Legacy Board Game Review
It is hard to review this fully without spoiling what is in the envelopes. But don't worry, I wouldn't do that to you. But the pink Elephant in the last envelope sure is unexpected! Don't worry, there isn't really a pink Elephant in the last envelope.
It's in the seventh one.
The first six games are all pretty simple. New ways to score are added at a nice pace and there is a nice gentle development of the game. Games seven to nine ramp up a bit with some interesting new ways to score and things to achieve that make the decisions you make a little more complex. Game seven was the first time I scored under ten, but this quickly changed as you work out the ways the game now wants you to play.
From game ten onwards the game ramps up and the changes feel bigger. There is a nice progression as you go. And the story certainly is interesting. Not what you may expect at all! Is the pay off enough? I would say, no. But do you need a pay off? Set your expectations to developments and changes rather than a massive shock or change and I think you will be happy. People have been spoilt by other legacy games and the way they throw unexpected curve balls that rip up the fundamentals of the game. This won't do that. But you will get new things that will make what you do completely different. Your board will evolve, the things you play on will too. Just have realistic expectations.
If you enjoyed My City then get this. You will like it just the same if not a little bit more. If My City wasn't for you, this won't be either. It is very similar with the only real difference being the shapes you are using now. I gave My City a 7. This gets an 8.5. I prefer this style of tile laying over the first games polyominos. But I did also prefer the progression and pace of the game. It is a better experience and one I would certainly encourage you check out.