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Imagineers is a theme park based game, where players strive to have the highest star rated park to win. Players gain points each turn based on the happiness they gather. Each time your happiness wheel completes a full circle, you gain another star.
First Impressions
Imagineers plays over a series of rounds (the number depends on the player count). Each round you flip one movement card and one event card over from the stack. These cards have special effects that you must take into account for all players. At the end of the round, discard these and draw new ones for the next round. This gives a fresh twist to each round, where you never really know what to expect. However, it can make it very hard to plan ahead.
Imagineers is fairly quick, so it’s easy to keep everyone focused. The game has some interesting meeple movement. It makes for a fresh experience and, if you’re lucky, some chain reaction point-scoring. We’ve enjoyed each game of this that we’ve played.
A nice touch is that the game board is double-sided. You can play the night or day side of the board to mix it up a little. The game remains the same, it’s mainly just a change in the colour scheme. But much nicer than having one side blank!
Building Your Park
During your turn, you have a few options. Build a new attraction on the shared board, upgrade your main attraction roller coaster on your personal board, or take a staff action. Then it’s on to meeple movement. You can choose one group of meeples to move (taking into account any restrictions/requirements due to the movement card). As you move the meeple group, you drop one meeple off at each attraction you pass. You score on that attraction if the meeple matches the attraction colour. For example, red meeples are thrill-seekers who ride rollercoasters. You collect all the happiness from matching colour rides, and whoever owns the attraction collects money. We found that the biggest way to increase your points is to upgrade your main roller coaster and have red meeples ride it as often as possible. This ride often gains you several full stars rather than just happiness points (of which you need 5 to complete the circuit to gain a star). It’s not easy to get the red meeples to your main coaster often though, so most turns you will be scoring from the other attractions on the board. Scoring from multiple attractions at once is very satisfying!
Artwork
The artwork on the attraction tiles is nice, with interesting rides on each tile. The boards felt a little lacklustre, and the starting tiles for each player (which are the entrance to your main roller coaster) felt like they needed something extra to make them stand out as the star attraction. They missed an opportunity for something that pops a little more here.
The Ups and Downs of Theme Park Ownership
What I didn’t like about Imagineers was the feeling that each turn I was being constricted in what I could do. The presentation suggests lots of room for strategy and setting up future turns. In reality, with 2 card flips majorly affecting each round, following through with those plans was next to impossible. It became more about making the best of what you were presented with each turn rather than forward planning. This felt a shame because we were all so eager to strategize and set up chain effect point collecting.
Most of the event cards have a negative effect on players and all the movement cards restrict your movement in some way. I would enjoy Imagineers more if there were some more positive cards available (especially just a few positive movement ones!) so that I felt hopeful about the card flips rather than nervous! Or if the movement restriction was only every other turn. On some turns, I felt less ‘I have many options before me’ and more ‘is there anything left I can do?’ – especially if you happen to be playing last in that round.
All of the game pieces are of good quality, but there isn’t a proper tray organiser in the box. Set up takes time as it’s all just thrown in there together!
Overall Thoughts
Imagineers is not complicated to learn. After a few plays with adults, we played with a 7-year-old. The only help given to him was pointing out the best meeple movements if he hadn’t already spotted it. However, with time he will learn this too, so Imagineers was very enjoyable as a family game. To be honest, that is where I would place this game. Firmly in the family fun section. The box states 10+, I’d say for children used to board games they could start playing a little younger. The theme certainly appeals to children, my 7-year-old loves it. His favourite part? Getting to name each attraction that you build. There are 20 mini tiles with names to choose from, and you pick one to mark that you own that ride. It’s actually a clever little addition, as you could just mark each one with your player colour. But this way, you can see your player's colour, pick a name that suits the ride, and stick to the theme of your rides.
For adults wanting to invest in a similarly themed game with a little more challenge, I would suggest Funfair or Unfair. I’m also personally looking forward to Dice Theme Park, set to release a little later this year.
If you’re looking for a fun, family game, to help progress your little board gamers, then I think this is a nice buy. I’m interested to see what the expansion, Imagineers, Have More Fun, will involve.
