IELLO Steam Park Game

In Steam Park, you are competing with others to build the best theme park for your guests ... and the rides just happen to be coal powered. Why they went with the Steampunk theme isn't necessarily clear - as it would work regardless - but that doesn't matter at all, nor does it take away from the fun.In this game, you roll a handful of dice to determine your actions - but you can re-roll them as many times as you like (to a point). You can then expand your plot of land, build a ride, build a kiosk (that gives you a bonus ability) clean up your park, and so forth. You can draw meeples to visit your park, and if the color meeple you pull out of the bag matches the color of a ride, you can add to your score.There are also goal cards that add to your total when you score them.In this game, victory points are represented by money. Just about everything you do increases the level of dirt in your park, so you'll need to spend some actions to clean that up as well - or you'll be penalized for it at the end of the game. Allowing for some dirt, then, is a risk/reward, and it's up to you to find that balance.The game lasts for six turns, then you total up the scores. There's a LOT more to it than that, but that's the general idea. It's a fun game.**Components:The components are colorful and well constructed. They seem durable. The dice are fantastic; they're the wooden ones with the bevelled edges, which are my favorite dice. The artwork is also nice looking. It is great on the table - the big 3D rides and attractions look awesome. You can create some cool visuals just by playing out the game. If I had to gripe about one thing, I guess the goal cards could be slightly better. But I'm really reaching here. Sleeve them, they'll be fine.Big bonus - the money isn't paper. It's cardboard punch-outs.**Gameplay:Rolling the dice frantically trying to get what you want is exceedingly fun. Great strategy trying to select which rides you want and where. Drawing the meeples from the bag can be a bit random, but you have some control over what you're going to get from the bag.There are tons of different actions that you can take, so you really have a lot of variety in what you can do. It keeps the game interesting, especially since you have a degree of control over what those actions will be.**Theme:It's a board game about building a theme park, and it holds up. The theme is everywhere in this game, right down to the idea of the dirt tokens and keeping a clean park. Everything that you can do makes sense.**Overall:Great game. Highly recommended. Not an incredible amount of depth, but a lot of variety and a lot of fun. Absolutely worth it.

This is an excellent family strategy game for four people, and the "ten and up" age description seems right on the money. I enjoy having a game that my 10yo does not get frustrated with, that is fun and "cool" enough for my teenager to play with his little brother and parents. We have only played a couple of times, so with the learning curve, it has taken right at an hour to play each time. While we have been in the learning phase, we have played without the "stands" rules, in order to learn the basic rules, but will be incorporating the stands the next time we play.The game components are well-made and attractive, although I wish the "money" had the numbers printed on both sides of the bills. The 3-d rides are so cute!Lots of small components mean that this game will be attractive to younger players, for all the wrong reasons, so I would limit it to the ages indicated.This is our first game of this type, although I have also purchased "Lewis and Clark". We will continue to look for other great games of this type (and if you have great suggestions for other games, please comment on my review!)

Steam Park: 2-4 Players, Ages 10+, Average Play Time = 60 MinutesFirstly, let’s get the complaints out of the way. I really only have one, but it’s very significant, I feel. The quality of the components, especially the rides, leave much to be desired. There’s some assembly required, first off. Normally that wouldn’t bug me, but the component that connects the two sides of the ride together need to be bent in two places by the user. Being made of fairly cheap cardboard, it’s extremely easy to snap the piece into two or three parts, which is bad. In fact, that’s what happened to me…twice. It’s hard to put the assembly process into words, but it’s overly complicated and silly. Had I designed this game, I would have made these rides one whole piece as opposed to two sides and a connector. I also wouldn’t have chosen cardboard. The art is great, don’t get me wrong, but how about we put a little more effort into designing ride pieces that are less cumbersome?“Steam Park” is unlike anything I’ve ever played before, though it does borrow elements and gameplay mechanics from a number of different places. A lot of the games I play are either fast, moderate, or slow-paced from beginning to finish…not so with “Steam Park”. Things heat up during the roll phase as everyone scrambles to lock in their dice first, but die down as folks begin trying to make sense of what they can do with the dice they’ve rolled. The developers could have made the roll phase turn-based but chose not too…presumably because they wanted to try something different. I don’t see why casual gamer families couldn’t adopt a turn-based roll phase, in fact I encourage it. Some of us don’t have the dexterity others do and keeping everyone on fair ground (as fair as you get with regard to dice rolling) might keep us older folk from getting too frustrated. Still, I can see where thinking by the seat of your pants has an appeal. I have a feeling that I’ll be switching off between both rule sets based on my mood.As fast-paced as the action gets sometimes, there’s a lot of strategy involved. If you opt to keep the default “simultaneous rolling” rule, you’ll need to keep your wits sharp and figure out which dice would benefit you the most given the present circumstances. Stands, for example, offer players ways to beat the odds (by redrawing visitors from the bag, etc.) but can take up a lot of space. If you haven’t expanded your park yet and want those stands, things will get pretty crowded in a hurry. In a sense, each player is playing their own personal puzzle game…that is, they’re trying to make the most of their resources with the limited space available to them. If you play games like “Zooloretto” on a regular basis, then you’ll excel here. The trick usually lies in doing things in the right order, but keeping things in moderation enough to where you have the points (or money) you need to win the game. Concentrate too much on expanding and stands, for example, and you’ll miss out on earning danari early on by constructing rides and attracting visitors.The game as a whole isn’t a bad one. The rulebook is well presented and the gameplay is engaging. The manual even includes lighter rules to accommodate first-time and/or casual players, eliminating the stands’ effects and replaces them with a straight out monetary boost at the game’s end. As I mentioned before, the game is flexible enough to make the roll phase turn-based on a whim, helping it to appeal to a wider audience. “Steam Park” wasn’t the in-depth roller coaster sim I was hoping for, but it packs a lot of punch regardless. I’d consider it more of a “Zooloretto” game with theme park elements instead of the reverse, though it still keeps me on my toes with new mechanics like dirt and the bonus cards. The components, namely the rides, really brought down the review score. While the cardboard cutouts may have saved the developer some money, they really rubbed me the wrong way. For a game about building your own theme park, I’d expect a bit more emphasis on the rides when it comes to quality control and functionality.