Review & Giveaway! Build Your Own Theme Park in Meeple Land

Fill your park with water rides and Ferris wheels, plot out the paths, and make sure there are plenty of amenities and room for all, to end up with the most popular amusement park around!

Published by Blue Orange Games, Meeple Land is a tile-laying game in which players are attempting to fill their park with multiple unique rides while making sure they have space for the right meeples by the end of the game.

Gameplay

Each player takes a park board. This shows a grid of squares and marks an entrance to the park. At the start of each round, players are given a certain amount of money, depending on the round number. Players then take turns until everyone has passed.

On your turn you may purchase, advertise, or pass. When you buy a tile, you buy from the face-up display on the table. Tiles are either attractions or services, and they come in three different sizes: small, medium, and large. When you purchase a tile, you discard the amount of money indicated by the tile, and then must add the tile to your park. Its road must connect with part of a pre-existing path on a tile already on your board.

Attractions show a certain number of meeples and their colors. This shows which meeples and how many can be placed on that attraction tile. Some of these spaces are locked unless you play a specific type of service tile adjacent to that attraction and connect the paths of the two tiles.

You may also purchase an extension to your park once per game, which adds a mini-grid to the side of your park board. Additionally, you can also buy a second entrance, which gives you a second path to build off from.

On the backside of each of the small tiles, are the advertisements. Each one shows a certain number of meeples in certain colors and the cost of purchasing it. When you advertise, you take the indicated meeples shown on the backside of the small tile draw pile and move that tile to the bottom of the stack. You may then place those meeples in your park or at its entrance.

There are a number of bus cards drawn each round equal to the number of players, plus one. Each shows a certain number of meeples in certain colors. When you pass your turn, you get to choose one of these buses and move the meeples to your park entrance. That bus card is then discarded.

After everyone has passed their turn, you may move all the meeples that you have room for from your park entrance into your park, placing them on any empty and open meeple slots if they are the right colors. Any meeples you do not have room for must remain at the entrance. Everyone then collects money, earning one coin for each meeple in their park. A few slots earn you one extra coin if there is a meeple present.

You then set up for a new round, with the player with the fewest amount of coins being the new start player. The game ends after four rounds.

Players earn points for having a variety of attractions, earning two points for seven different types of attractions, six points for eight, and all the way up to twenty-five points for having a complete set of twelve different attractions.  You then count all the meeples in your park, and lose points for any that are still waiting at the entrance. Green and blue meeples are worth one point in your park and negative one point at your entrance, while pink and yellow meeples are worth two points in the park and negative two outside it. Finally, you lose two points for each place in your park where the path is cut off by another tile. The player with the most points wins the game.

Review

Meeple Land is a bright, colorful tile-laying game with a lot going on each round, and offers lots of player choice. There are plenty of tiles to choose from when purchasing, and you need to consider both the meeples available on the buses, those waiting to enter the park, and which meeples will be accepted on each tile.

It’s a clever, layered game that is still relatively accessible. The fact that the tiles come in three different sizes also adds an extra element to the tile-laying itself and provides you with more choices in the layout of your park.

We liked that the first player to pass on their turn is the first to choose their bus, as controlling what meeples come your way can be quite powerful and is an interesting way to balance the game. The fact that most rounds you get a certain number of coins to start with also helps to give you more options should you have a bad round income-wise.

The theme is so much fun. Building your own theme park is quite enjoyable, and it's satisfying to lay out your park and see it grow with more rides as you plot out the paths. The perfect layout is quite hard to achieve, and keeping those paths open so that you can keep adding to your park can be tricky. We appreciated that the game made allowances for that and gives options for adding entrances and more land in case you box yourself in.

It does have some more complex rules than you’d typically find in a casual game. There are a lot of little elements to remember. The score sheets do a nice job of reminding you how each element scores in the game, but this isn’t going to be the fastest game to get started when teaching new players.

Meeple Land is one of those games that’s just long enough that it’s going to take center stage at a game night. If you’re looking for something with a little more heft to it, it has plenty to offer. It feels like the next step up in complexity from something like Carcassonne, but after a couple of games of it you’re going to feel more in control and can have fun with all the elements and strategy involved.

Pros: Fun theme, plenty of player choices, lots of elements to balance the game

Cons: Slightly on the heftier side for a casual game

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.

Giveaway

Would you love to build your own amusement park? Enter below for a chance to win a brand new copy of Meeple Land, plus a metal coins upgrade pack. One lucky winner will be chosen (U.S. only, 18+). We would like to thank Blue Orange Games for sponsoring this giveaway!

Meeple Land + Upgraded Metal Coins Giveaway