MegaCity: Oceania Review

Megacity : Oceania is a two to four player dexterity, strategy city building game from Jordan Draper and Michael Fox and published by Hub Games.

Megacity: Oceania is set on the Gold Coast of Australia in 2100. The first oceanic mega city has begun construction and you are primed to reap the benefits. Towering superstructures built on floating platforms are now a thing and you have been called upon to design and build these structures. Race to collect contracts, construct buildings according to the plans and compete for unique awards.

Megacity: Oceania is a unique combination of strategic city building and dexterity. Players will perform actions to gather building pieces, contracts and platforms. Construct buildings according to the contracts and then slide them along the table to join the ever growing and expanding floating mega city.

Points are awarded for contracts, the tallest buildings and adjacency to parks containing monuments. Megacity: Oceania offers a very interesting dexterity game combined with strategy in a unique way.

Does the mix of dexterity and strategy combine to form a solid game that can stand on its own like a shiny brand new skyscraper?

Or does it all come crashing down like a house built on sand?

Well read on to find out what I thought.

The Skies is The Limit

Hub Games have done something quite unique with Megacity: Oceania which works wonderfully well. Have you ever played with the meeples, resources or pieces from a game whilst someone else is having their turn? Stacked the meeples on top of each other to form a pyramid? Built a tower out of wood and stone? Or just simply fiddled with the pieces to build “something”. We have all done it right? Well Megacity: Oceania has taken that built-in compulsion that we have and, surprisingly, made a game out of it.

The combination of the dexterity element and the, albeit light, strategy element works well. It has the feelings of a euro game with gaining “resources” to complete contracts. But they have very cleverly woven a dexterity element in to the main mechanism as well. You literally “build” your city as the game progresses. You have some requirements to meet on the contract card (number of pieces, height, features etc). But you can build any crazy futuristic mishmash shaped building that you want. It makes for an eye catching city that will look and feel different each time you play.

Most points will be gained from the completed contract cards but additional points can be gained from adjacency to parks with monuments, building out of one material, tallest building, diversity and majority. This offers players choices when it comes to which contract to take and what to construct.

There is some hold your breath moments when you are pushing your precariously tall building to the centre of the table and hoping that it doesn’t topple. There are choices on where to place your building to score maximum points from surrounding parks at the end game. The game is also pretty quick. Two player game, including rules teach is less than an hour. At the end of the game you have a unique and interesting city that you and your fellow players have built.

One minor point to note is the timing of the landmark cards at the end of the game felt a bit “odd”. It felt like there would never be enough time to complete them before the end of the game and effectively making them null and void. Now this might be me playing poorly and not planning properly for them towards the end. I am hoping with a few more plays that I can change my end game plan to utilise these cards more effectively as they can be worth big points.

But this is a very minor point on an otherwise fantastic game. I think Hub Games, Jordan Draper and Michael Fox have created something unique and different with Megacity: Oceania. I have had great fun playing it.