Megaland

Today we’re checking out Megaland – a push-your-luck, tableau building game designed by Ryan and Marjorie Laukat, and published by Red Raven Games. In Megaland, players race to twenty coins in a “video game” world, running levels, fighting monsters, and discovering treasures along the way. Let’s get to it.

You can’t talk about a Ryan Laukat game without recognizing his consistently outstanding artwork, and Megaland is no exception. Everything from box art down to the rule book look fantastic. If you’ve played any of Ryan’s other titles, the art style will feel familiar, yet distinct to Megaland. In fact, if you look closely enough, you might just find something extra special that relates more directly to one of his other games.

Production quality is equally impressive – everything is printed on high quality materials. Even the character standees feel nice and sturdy. I usually just toss out box inserts and either make my own, buy a third party insert, or throw everything in bags, but I’m happy to say I didn’t have to do any of those things with Megaland. Red Raven teamed up with Game Trayz to make one of the most functional box inserts I’ve seen to date – making set up and tear down a breeze. I will say it is prone to having cards mix up if the box gets jostled too much, but I only know that because my toddler likes to shake boxes.

Thanks to the aforementioned box insert, setup takes about a minute. It involves laying out two rows of building cards, a few decks of cards for treasures and levels, and a common pool of resources. Each player gets a standee, player card, and four hearts, and the game is ready to go. The quick setup combined with the short play time have already made Megaland a regular at our table, at least when kids are around.

The rule book is well constructed, ordered logically and, as a general rule, does a good job of addressing any questions that pop up. The one exception is the treasure chest card, which states that “everyone” gets a treasure card. Since this is a push your luck game, I can only assume that the rules meant everyone still in the level – this caused a brief debate between myself and my nephew (I won, of course).

Megaland is played in rounds, which are separated into three phases – Run the level, Buy, and Night. In the first phase, players gain a treasure card, resolve the next level card, then decide to either push their luck and stay for another level card, or take their treasure home to spend. If a player runs out of hearts at any time, they lose all of the treasure they are carrying with them. Once every player has either returned home or “fallen” (ran out of hearts), the round continues to the Buy phase.

In the Buy phase, players spend their hard earned treasure. Unique treasures can be used to get additional hearts, or to purchase buildings. Buildings can be used to store treasure between rounds, and grant everything from coins and “jump” tokens, to interesting persistent effects like gaining coins or treasure when certain events happen.

The Night phase sets up for the next round. Players either store or discard their unused treasures, resolve any moon icons on buildings, reset their hearts to full, shuffle the level deck, and check to make sure nobody has reached the win condition of twenty coins. If someone does reach twenty coins, the game ends and the person with the most coins wins, otherwise, the next round begins.

Megaland is a fun mix of tableau building and press-your-luck mechanics that is really easy to pick up, quick to get to the table, and has become a highly requested game at family gatherings. If pressed, I might complain that it feels a little underwhelming to spend a jump token on a space that can’t be jumped and still lose the token, but that’s a minor complaint, and it honestly makes sense in a press-your-luck game. If you’re looking for something light and quick that can be played with kids and adults alike, Megaland is worth a look.

Review copy provided by Red Raven Games

Publisher: Red Raven Games
Number of Players: 2-5
Age: 8+
Price at time of Review: $20

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(Repost of original review from January 2019)