Mariposas

Mariposas is a game of...

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With all the game announcements, I can’t believe that the one that I’m most interested in is about butterflies. I might have to turn in my F:AT card and go play Agricola.

Mostly it’s a factor of the slim pickings of this year’s game announcement season.

What I’ve been hearing is that publishers shifted gears due to the pandemic. They’ve been putting the breaks on development of “gamer’s games” and big multiplayer games, and accelerating development on their family and 2-player games. So expect to see a lot of family and 2-player games announced this GenCon, and hitting the shelves in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021. Also expect release date delays on other types of games previously announced if they weren’t already in the production pipeline back in March.

Well, I got this for Birthday and played it last night. It's good. A bit more crunchy than Wingspan. It feels like a pick-up and deliver, although technically in may not be. It is played over 3 "seasons," with each season having 2 or 3 ways to score points (chosen randomly so each game is a little different). Although all the objectives are essentially "get your butterflies to a certain area of the map." You start with one butterfly and over the course of the game spawn more. However at the end of each season you lose your oldest ones.

You always seem to have a "stick with the one-in-the-hand or risk going for the two-in-the-bush" situation. Do you move butterflies over to the the score zone as quickly as possible so they score at the end of the season, or risk moving a bit slower to be able to gather flowers (food) so you can spawn more butterflies. More butterflies in the score zone means more points, but if you dilly-dally too long, none of them will end up making it to the score zone in time.

This is gong to sound like an odd comparison, but it tickles the same bit of my brains that Merchant of Venus does.

@Josh

I was thinking exactly that as I looked over my birthday board game loot. However, Euros have come a long way from drab, procedural, cube squashers. Zoe played Quacks for the first time on Tuesday. As she put her hand in her bag for a critical draw she said, "OMG. My heart is pounding. Is this what gambling feels like?" I think any game that can get your heart rate up is a good game.

Msample wrote: Interesting that the designer went with someone other than Stonemaier, who published Wingspan.

I'm guessing AEG could offer her more money/larger print run/wider distribution with no Kickstarter/distribution gamesmanship mucking about.

Yes, I think Mariposas fits nicely with War Chest. There is a tiny bit of luck, but it is mostly your brain vs the other player’s brains. The rules are deceptively simple. The challenge come from who you are playing against. It leans towards the abstract, despite all the pretty butterflies.

Played again tonight. I think no one likes this game but me.