Land of Amazement is the latest Scott Almes solo game published by Button Shy. In keeping with their games that means it’s an 18 card game which neatly fits into a wallet. In Land of Amazement you take on the role of an amusement park designer trying to build up your portfolio of work.
How it plays
Gameplay is divided into two phases both of which involve placing and moving cards to build ‘parks’. Set up, as one would expect from a wallet game, is swift. Take the three megapark cards and choose one at random. Then take the deck of park cards and shuffle them. Deal four to make a starting hand, place one at the top of the megacard and the rest divide into three piles. Phase one of the games requires you create smaller parks, the design of which appears at the top of each card in the piles. You do this by turning over each card from your hand, in turn, and assigning it to one of the parks. You can choose either of the building blocks on a card and rotate it how you wish to try and create the park pattern. It doesn’t have to be exact (as in the example below) but if it is you gain the ability in the top right of the card.
You then move all the cards to the discard pile, which reveals the next park in the stack. When you have no more cards in your hand, the round ends, now you must ‘reserve’ one card for the megapark – in the card below round 1 would require you to reserve a card with a purple icon, round 2 green and so on. Phase one of the game continues until all the rounds on the megapark are covered then it’s time for phase 2.
In the second phase you use the reserved cards and try and manipulate them to create the megapark plan. Once you’ve given that your best shot you score points according to how well the plan has been completed. Points are penalties such as not having all the squares or missing icons. As such a perfect score would be zero.
Good for lunch?
As you would expect from a button shy game, set up and play is quick and easy with a game falling into that sweet spot of around 10 minutes. As other reviews on the site would support, I do like a puzzle game but for me, I found the game a bit fiddly. While the puzzle is mildly engaging, the fiddliness holds it back from being truly satisfying. I feel that having two phases actually takes away from my enjoyment, it’s quite fun trying to remove cards from the stacks but then I almost have to restart to achieve the megaplan, and since with this I have to use all the cards it can become quite tiresome. It’s not bad by any means, but it also doesn’t leave a strong impression or a strong urge to replay. If you enjoy tiny solo games you may find it a pleasant diversion for a couple of plays but it is likely to remain just that: pleasant, and nothing more.
Lunch time solo 