Mechanica

Mechanica is a tile laying engine building game in which the box itself is part of the game in a very interesting way. Each player has their own factory board in which they will be purchasing tiles from a central wheel (located within the game box) and slotting them into their factory. Each tile performs an action such as combining robots, multiplying robots, splitting robots and a host of other abilities. The robots travel along your product route and eventually hit a delivery truck at which point they can be sold for money or traded in to hit various objectives. Based on how your factory is set up, robots may travel along and through various routes being manipulated as you see fit.

With each passing round, the wheel is rotated and new factory tiles are added. Tiles that have not been purchased in previous rounds become cheaper, until at point in which they drop into the box and are not available for purchase.

The above is not a full rules explanation but hopefully gives you a flavour of how the game is played.

Final Thoughts

This whole game is set in a wacky world in which the players are building TidyBots, small ambitious vacuum robots designed to tidy up the mess that we, as humans, have created. What is very humorous is that the rulebook has an underlying tone of robot world domination. Is OPERATION CLEANUP all that it seems or are we creating TidyBots that are eventually going to clean up the humans? Either way, the game is very unique in that it utilises the game box itself as a component, something that I truly love. Is this more than a simple gimmick, well read on and find out what I thought of Mechanica.

The central wheel sits within the game box, above a recess and after the wheel spins enough time, any pieces not purchased drop down into the box. Lost forever. Yes it is a gimmick, but I think it is pretty neat. The rest of the box is designed to store all the components, pieces, tokens/tiles etc that you need for the game, making setup an absolute piece of cake. Not only is a fun gimmick to have but, it is actually functional and works very well.

The core concept of building a factory to manipulate these robots that keep being churned out each round, is a very fun and addictive loop. Each turn you are upgrading your factory with a new tile or delivery truck. Making it better and more complex each turn. This is great for the most part, but it can lead to some serious brain power being burned thinking of where to add your new tile that does not completely destroy the engine you have just built. The enjoyment for me is the core puzzle of optimisation and efficiency based on the tiles I have and the objectives I am aiming for.

In addition to manufacturing your robots for profit, you can also use them to fulfil blueprints. These are also displayed in the box and add money to your vault. This adds an additional thought into your game and manufacturing process. Mechanica can be hit and miss with some people though. I have a fairly logic and analytical brain so it came quite easy to me to follow my Robots through the production steps and work out what I will end up with. If your brain is not wired this way, you may struggle. Although not a complicated game I have had players just struggle to grasp the core concept of robot manipulation. But not every game can be for everyone.

Overall, I think Mechanica is a wonderful game. It plays well multiplayer (although 4 players may drag a little) as well as solo. The solo variant is actually quite challenging. I really enjoy the puzzle of working out how to manipulate my robots to achieve my desired outcome and creating a more and more complicated factory. I like the way the box has been implemented as a component and it works really well. Mechanica is definitely one to check out.