SNAP Review – Mycelia

It seems like people either love or hate mushrooms.

Yeah. And as much as I want to like eating them, I just can’t. I appreciate how they look; I appreciate the decomposing job they do in nature. But I don’t think I’ve ever said a mushroom was “cute”.

This. Changes. Now.

Game

Mycelia is a game for 1-4 players by Daniel Greiner and published by Ravensburger. The box says it’s best for ages 9 and up and it takes about 45 minutes.

Art

So, let’s talk about the art in this game! I mean, it’s so cute!

It only gets better inside the box.

There are even more of these cute mushroom characters on the cards – and there are a LOT of cards.

There are also these lovely gem “dewdrops” and cute little leaf tokens.

The player boards are colorful and attractive, too.

But! The most eye-catching thing in Mycelia is this beautiful “shrine” with a rotating top.

I do have to admit, it was a little bit of a pain to set this thing up.

But it’s so pretty!

All right, that’s enough. Let’s talk about how to play the game. What are the mechanics of Mycelia?

Mechanics

The mechanics are very simple:

Everyone starts with three cards in their hand and an identical layout of 20 dewdrops on their board.

Your goal is to be the first to remove all the dewdrops from your board. Every turn, you’ll play the three cards in your hand. Each card you play will have an action on it, such as moving a dewdrop, removing it entirely, or gaining you “leaves” – the in-game currency.

At any time during your turn, you can spend your leaves to use additional actions – they’re here, below your board – or buy more cards. Any card you buy goes on top of your deck, so you are guaranteed to have it on your next turn.

Whenever you remove a dew drop – either directly, or by moving it to this portal area of your player board – place it on the central shrine.

Draw three new cards to end your turn.

If the shrine is full at the end of any player’s turn (full depends on player count), it’s time to get the Forest Goddess’s blessing: Turn the wheel to drop all the dewdrops out of the shrine, which will also roll this cute little wooden die.

Everyone must now place one or two dewdrops back onto their board! Figure out where by finding the symbol on the die on this little supply card. These locations correspond to locations on your player board.

Once everyone has done that, flip the supply card to the other side, and move on to the next player’s turn.

When a player clears all the dewdrops from their board, the game ends. They’ve probably won, but finish the round to make sure everyone has had an equal number of turns. Then, if more than one player has cleared their board, the one with the most leaves wins.

We just described the basic game. For more experienced gamers, there are additional components you can add to extend it, but the rules stay exactly the same.

Expectations

So Andrew, what did we expect from Mycelia?

I interviewed some folks at Ravensburger back at PAX Unplugged about this game, and they told me that Daniel, the creator, created this game to teach his mom about deck building. That’s an adorable story and so much of that comes out in the art – and so I figured this would be exactly that, an entry level deck builder.

What did you expect?

I don’t know, I thought the box looked cute, but there have been a lot of mushroom games and I just don’t love them. It took a long time to get me to play this one.

But you were surprised.

Surprises

I was!

I was surprised by how much I liked Mycelia. As deck building games go, it’s pretty simple. But I like the way the deck building supports a real goal, a different goal, which is to get rid of dewdrops.

Honestly with Mycelia I was super glad we played a few times. The first time I played this game, it fell a little bit flat, but after playing it more, I think it was just the way the cards came out or something. I still think the forest shrine is a little overbuilt for what it needs to be, but I appreciate it for its toy factor, and for the target audience. It’s totally fine.

I think it’s cute and wonderful.

I was actually also surprised at the difficulty rating – the box on this says 9+, which I didn’t think was going to be right. But it is right on. It was super easy to teach our 9 year old, and I think I could teach the basic version even to a kid as young as 6 or 7 if they’ve played some games before. It’s just not a difficult game. I do like how you can give it more variability by adding the extension cards that do more different things, or you can flip the player boards so they’re not identical to each other.

Mycelia moves really fast at two players; you’re looking at more like 20-30 minutes. But at a slightly higher player count, you’ll still need to pay attention on other people’s turns, because there are several cards – even in the basic version – that reward all the players at the table.

Our kids all really enjoyed it but they did in fact have trouble staying focused. Our four player game just took a little bit too long.

A lot longer than 45 minutes.

We definitely recommend playing without the extension cards at least once, especially if you’re playing with kids, but if you’re gamers or you’re playing primarily with adults that get how gaming works (maybe they’re not “capital G” Gamers), you’ll probably always going to play with the extension cards.

The game is pretty well balanced, nobody really ran away with it any time we played. You generally have a good idea who’s probably going to win, but everyone is in it until the end, which I really appreciated.

Recommended?

So Anitra, do we recommend Mycelia?

Yes! We recommend Mycelia for families. It’s cute and it does exactly what it says, introducing people to deck builders. There are small adjustments to make it easier than most deck builders – like putting the cards you buy on top of your deck, so you get them immediately. You can rein in the difficulty by sticking with those simple basic cards, too, and let your family grow into the expanded cards later.

If your group or family really loves the mechanics, there are all sorts of more complicated deck building games out there that still fit a family well. We can tell you all about those at TheFamilyGamers.com.

But until then, we’re going to rate Mycelia four creminis…

Ugh.

Morels?

Yuck!

Truffles?

Sure.

All right. We’re going to rate Mycelia 4 truffles out of 5.

And that’s Mycelia, in a SNAP!

Find it on Amazon, direct from Ravensburger, or at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Mycelia from Ravensburger for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?