Maps of Misterra – Cartographic Curiosities

The idea of discovering a new land can be intoxicating. In Maps of Misterra, you play as a cartographer exploring and documenting the newly discovered island: Misterra. What will drive your mapping: accuracy or the favor of your benefactor?

Maps of MIsterra is designed by Mathieu Bossu, Thomas Cariate, and Timothee Decroix and illustrated by Stanislas Puec from Sit Down! Games. It supports 1-4 players for ages 10 and up.

Setup

Each player chooses a color and takes their matching cartographer meeple, character card, claim markers, and parchment board.

Place the Island Board in the center of the table. Be sure the player boards are oriented the same way as the shared island board. Shuffle the presumption cards and deal four to each player. They’ll choose two to keep hidden and discard the others.

Shuffle the appropriate number of sketch cards for your player count and deal five cards face-up to form a display.

Gameplay – All in a Day’s Work

Turns are two half-days. First, move your cartographer. Next, choose a sketch card available from the display. Lastly, choose to use the sketch card or discard it and instead stake a claim. This ends your morning, now do it one more time. At the conclusion of your day, refill the sketch card display for the next player.

Moving

You can choose to move your cartographer meeple at the start of each half-turn. It only moves one spot orthogonally adjacent from its current location.

The type of terrain you land on has a special effect:

• The Steppe allows you to immediately move again to an adjacent space (if Steppe tiles are adjacent to each other, you can move quickly across the map).
• The Lagoon allows you to discard and redraw a new sketch card.
• The Mountains allow you to see further.
• The Jungle prevents you from mapping (but you can still stake a claim).

Mapping

Mapping is the crux of what a cartographer does. In Maps of Misterra, when you map you are choosing how to balance your presumption card goals (what your rich sponsor thinks the island looks like) and what the island truly looks like. How accurate will you make your parchment board?

To make this balancing act even murkier, the first time someone maps a square, the matching tile is placed on the island with its hazy side up. The same tile needs to be mapped as the same terrain twice to be flipped to its confirmed side.

If anyone maps a hazy area as a different terrain type, it gets switched on the island board to that type. A confirmed tile cannot be changed on the Island board.

Stake a Claim

Each player has three claim markers. During any turn, you can use one to claim the land you are standing on instead of mapping, if that land tile is confirmed.

Each player can only claim a type of terrain once and cannot move the claim marker once placed. Claimed areas are worth bonus points at the end based on the number of confirmed tiles in that region. They cannot be shared at the time of the claim, but the changing map can cause them to be shared and negate all claim points.

Solo Mode

Maps of Misterra does have a solo mode in which you play against an “Otoma” with its own set of rules and a deck. It’s straightforward, just flip the next card over and follow the instructions. If you like playing solo puzzles, it works fairly well.

As the game progresses, handling the Otoma gets easier because more of the map is confirmed, so it does less each turn.

Impressions

Maps of Misterra is gorgeous. The whole family enjoyed the details the artists put into every aspect of this game. My wife loves games with beautiful maps: exactly what Maps of Misterra promises.

We knew map-making would be the core of the game, but we were surprised the personal maps did not need to match the island layout. That led to some interesting discussions with the kids.

There is no reading required to play, but understanding how grids work and having the fine motor skills to place tiles on the island board and sketch cards on the personal board without getting frustrated is important.

Expectations Vs. Reality

This game caught our eye because of the lovely artwork. But was it fun? Not as much as we hoped. Our son said it was just okay, but it did keep his interest enough to play a few times and have some interesting conversations.

My wife says Maps of Misterra may be a better fit for game schooling than family game night. It gives you a chance to discuss why people might cave to the expectations of someone with power or why they might be honest. Of course, there are many examples of this in our history and even today. It also shows the importance of confirmation in math and sciences, and how just one person could claim anything without it being true.

If exploring and making maps is a strong interest, or if you want to explore some cartography-related topics with your kids, this may be the game for you.

You can find your own copy of Maps of Misterra directly from Sit Down! Games, on Amazon, or at your friendly local game store.

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Sit Down! Games provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Maps of Misterra for this review

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