Base price: $15.
1 player.
Play time: ~15 minutes.
BGG Link
Check it out on Kickstarter!
Logged plays: 4

Full disclosure: A preview copy of Lands of Amazement was provided by Button Shy. Some art, gameplay, or other aspects of the game may change between this preview and the fulfillment of the Kickstarter, should it fund, as this is a preview of a currently unreleased game. 

Alright, better late than never, but to my credit: Gen Con happened and completely ran train on me. I’ve almost recovered from whatever specific version of con crud I managed to come down with. But we don’t need to get into my specific medical history; I’m sure Instagram has plenty of it as-is. I’m doing fine. In the meantime, however, Button Shy dropped a new Kickstarter! So I want to tell y’all about it because I love their games. Let’s talk about Lands of Amazement!

In Lands of Amazement, it’s time to build parks! Unfortunately they’re not gonna let you go straight to the massive megaparks. You have to earn your badges first! Start small, build up parks, and prove you have what it takes to bring all the big rides together to create one massive megapark. Just be careful: you need multiple different elements to make it all work! Can you create a theme park for the ages?

Contents

• Setup
• Gameplay
• Player Count Differences
• Strategy
• Pros, Mehs, Cons
• Overall

Setup

Not a lot, here, as you’d expect. Take the Megapark Cards and select one to play, setting the rest aside. They’re double-sided, so keep that in mind:

Shuffle the remaining Park Cards:

You’ll place one face-down covering the “PORTFOLIO” on the Megapark Card (just the word), four face-down into a deck, and then make three semi-equal stacks face-down to the right of the Portfolio. Once you have, flip the stacks face-up so you only see the bottom (now top) card. You should be ready to start!

Gameplay

Each round kind of plays the same until the end. So let’s talk through a round.

To take a turn, flip the top card of the deck. You can either add it to / under an existing Park or make a new area to start a new Park. Cards can’t completely cover other cards and you can’t use both shapes on one card on the same Park; standard polyomino card rules. If you manage to create a shape that is at least one of the shapes on a card in one of the stacks, you get that card and you discard that card and the corresponding Park to the discard pile. If you perfectly match the shape, you can also activate the card’s ability, which may be useful.

Once you’re out of cards or stacks, the round ends. Discard all unfinished Parks and any cards left in the deck, and then go through your discard pile and choose one card with an icon matching the icon(s) on the Portfolio card for the current round. Add that card face-down to the Reserve pile on top of the Portfolio cards.

After the final round, it’s time to build your Megapark! Take all of the reserved cards and try to put them together to build the Megapark’s shape. Just keep in mind, you take Penalty Points if you have too many icons (1 each), too few icons (2 each), or are missing the matching icons from the Portfolio (1 each). Tally up your points and see how you did; a 0 is a perfect score!

Player Count Differences

None; it’s a solo game. That said, you could quite easily play this with someone else if you’re looking to solve a problem with more heads. There’s no rule against it and Jason and Scott won’t find out unless you tell them. Your secret is safe with What’s Eric Playing?.

Strategy

• You do kind of want to be activating abilities as you can. It’s basically just free extra bonuses that can mostly help you out or let you undo mistakes or potentially set yourself up for better plays down the line. If you’re planning ahead, sometimes that’s worth it. If it’s going to discard a card you Reserved for a specific purpose in favor of one that may be worthless, well, don’t do that.
• Consider what you need for the Megapark; don’t just throw in the biggest shapes. You need certain specific shapes so you can make the proper shape, not just the biggest ones you can find (unless your goal is just a big rectangle).
• You can have multiple parks under construction at once. You can split your focus to try and perfectly build many smaller parks rather than just going one at a time. You’ll get more bonuses this way.
• Generally, efficient construction is the name of the game. You’re likely going to move pretty slowly in round 1 as you get the hang of what cards you have. But your goal is going to be to try and usually use two cards to get a bonus so that you can set yourself up for future successes.
• One of the best abilities in the game is the card whose ability lets you immediately Reserve it, giving you an extra card in the Megapark pool. You get an entirely free additional Reserve card, which is pretty great. It’s not the worst thing if that card is unavailable, but it’s definitely better for you if it’s available.
• Keep in mind that you’ll gain Penalty points for missing symbols when you build the Megapark, so a shapes-only approach won’t cut it either. You need to focus on making sure you add the right mix of icons and then use the right mix of icons when you’re building your Megapark if you don’t want to get a bunch of penalty points.
• You don’t specifically need to clear all the stacks (unless you’re playing on Expert Mode!). They’re there to benefit you, but if you’re ready and covered, you don’t necessarily need all the cards (or to activate their abilities).

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

• We love a good spatial puzzle. There’s a very specific part of my brain that loves moving shapes around and games like this continue to hit that spot.
• I appreciate the reuse of the cards to give the game more longevity in a single session. A lot of Button Shy games have you go through the deck once and stop (sometimes by necessity; you’re just out of cards). I appreciate that you get a few cycles through the deck in a way that makes sense.
• I love the art. The game looks fantastic. Great work, Daria Lada.
• Theme park construction games are some of my favorites, thematically speaking. It’s been that way since Rollercoaster Tycoon and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. I like theme park games even more than theme parks.
• Love the portability. Generally a perk of Button Shy titles; you’re not exactly hurting for space where they’re concerned.
• The game has a good amount of challenge and luck, based on what cards you get where and when and how the draw benefits or penalizes you, but there’s plenty of strategic play as well. I think Lands of Amazement strikes a nice balance. It’s easy to occasionally feel like there’s too much of a luck element, but given how the puzzle works and how you can save cards and plan ahead, there are often plenty of strategic outlets for you to be successful if that’s truly your goal.

Mehs

• All shape rotation games are, I think, designed to activate the part of your brain that’s like “oh, if I just flip it around, no, wait”, and this certainly does that. I think this is even more explicit in this game since certain rotations are invalid since they’re blocked by the rest of the card. This is a game where I crave mirror images of certain shapes and the cards I have just won’t cut it, sometimes.

Cons

• There are a few places where I wish the rules were a bit clearer. What happens if you try to use an ability that won’t let you start a new park? Can one card contribute to two parks? What if you have no cards with a symbol matching the Portfolio (can you still reserve one)? These aren’t huge deals but I was wondering from my plays.

Overall: 8.5 / 10

Overall, I like Lands of Amazement! I was already a bit predisposed, to be fair, since it’s polyominoes and a theme park construction game. Two of my favorite things, straight off the bat? You’re spoiling me, Button Shy. I generally am also a bit fan of the Simply Solo series, so, credit where credit’s due, Scott. That all sets this up pretty well to be favorable, but it’s worth diving into why I liked the game so much. Here, it’s that Lands sets up a pretty smart spatial puzzle that’s worth planning around and solving without requiring too much extra brain load when you play. It’s not particularly difficult to learn, but there’s plenty of things to manage and a bit of luck you’ll need on your side in order to get the best overall score. The art, masterfully done, also invokes the excitement and thrill and color of a theme park, which I love. I think any theme park-themed games have to go hard on the art otherwise it won’t hit quite as well. One thing I particularly liked about Lands, however, is that there’s repetition to the puzzle. It’s not just about making tiny parks once; you’re doing that to unlock more cards so that you can build parks better the next round to reserve the cards you need. It’s almost got a bit of deckbuilding to it. I think that’s both very cool and very economical, since that gives you more places to go with your cards. Finishing out with the Megapark is fun and challenging and a great finale overall. Lands of Amazement is another successful solo title for Button Shy, and if you like theme parks, spatial puzzles, or putting those two things together, you’ll likely enjoy it as well!

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