Game Review

Tabletop Review: Machi Koro

Machi Koro

Image Credit: BoardGameGeek

Designer: Masao Suganuma
Artists: Noboru Hotta, Ian Parovel, Mirko Suzuki
Publisher: IDW Games
Number of Players: 2 – 4 (Harbor expansion adds one more)
Playing Time: 30 minutes

My six-year old son and I try to get in a couple of games a week. This helps to get him away from electronics for a spell. One of the games that he really gets into is Machi Koro by Masao Suganuma.  
 
Machi Koro is a city building game with dice as the core element of the game. Each player starts off with two production buildings in their respective tableau (Wheat Field [1] and Bakery [2-3]) and four landmark buildings. At the start of a turn, a player will roll one or two dice depending on if they have built the Station landmark. 

Image credit: BoardGameGeek

Image credit: BoardGameGeek

The resulting rolled is summed and will activate cards in front of all the players depending on the color. Blue cards are activated when anyone rolls. Red cards are activated on other player’s turns. Green and purple cards are activated only for the rolling player. These cards will yield income for the players either from the bank or from other players. Once income has been earned, the rolling player may purchase a face up card or flip over one of the landmarks. When a player has built all four landmarks, the game is over. The Harbor expansion adds in two more Landmarks and adjusts the setup so that all of the buildings are shuffled together and only twelve buildings are revealed at a time; duplicates will stack on each other.

Machi Koro is an excellent dice game giving just the right amount of decision making for each of the players. I have to ask my son why he is buying things to make sure that he understands the concept of engine building, which he is quickly learning. The Harbor expansion is a must to truly enjoy this game.
 
Rating: 7 out of 10
 
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