There's been a recent mushrooming of fungus-themed board games, so this game from Ravensburger is only the latest to sprout. The game was proving to be a big draw at UK Games Expo earlier this year so we've been eager to get it to the table.
Mycelia is a deck building game where each turn you're playing your hand of three cards to move dewdrops to a portal so that they exit your player board. Some cards earn you leaves which function as the currency of the game for the purpose of buying more cards from the display and for triggering once-per-turn powers, but ultimately this game is a race between the 2-4 players to be the first to clear all the dewdrops off their individual board (plus there are also components to enable solitaire play).
The mechanics in Daniel Greiner's design are simple and straightforward enough to make Mycelia a light family game. If you're new to deck building then Mycelia will give you an easy-to-grasp induction, tho' be warned there are a couple of cards that seem relatively overpowered: nab a card that lets you place out a second exit portal anywhere you like on your board and you're pretty much guaranteed the win. The game benefits from cute art from Justin Chan and Matt Paquette & Co but there's a large white elephant in the room...
Seemingly central to the game is a 3D structure onto which each dewdrop is placed when you take it off your board. It's the most immediately striking component, and it takes some assembly. It functions as a kind of rotating dice tower: the idea is that, when all the available slots on the structure have been filled, you rotate the top so that all the dewdrops and a custom six-sided die cascade out. It works (tho' we had to lower the exit slide for it to work well) and it looks fun but it's functionally pointless. When the dewdrops and die have been expelled, you just look at what icon is showing on the die, compare it to a key and place out one or two dewdrops on the indicated position on everyone's board. All this does is extend the game, and in any event the exact same outcome could be determined simply by rolling the die.
There's a lot to like about Mycelia and we're not knocking it as an attractive family game but it's annoying to see a relatively elaborate component so underused. Surely it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with a variant that makes fuller and more effective use of this game's impressive rotating dice tower...