The Great Shard is a mystical and powerful element that needs safeguarding. With a crew of enhanced Mutagen, we are vying to be its next protector, but which one of us will the Keeper choose? Let’s find out in Mutagen by Dranda Games!
Dranda Games have a reputation for well produced, interesting, and engaging gameplay. Indeed, most if not all of their games have collected awards and accolades along the way. I count Pioneer Rails and the newly released Explorers of Navoria as amongst our favourite games to play! So when I had the opportunity to try Mutagen ahead of its crowdfunding campaign launch on Kickstarter, I was very excited!
Before getting into how we got on, I need to mention that we have played a preview copy which maybe subject to change – rules, components, anything we have seen could be altered prior to fulfilment. But that is the exciting part of backing a game – the publishers and designers can continue to tweak and refine to make your ultimate experience the best it can be!
Elemental, my dear!
Okay, so what were we doing in Mutagen? In its simplest form, it is a worker placement game – pick a crew member, upgrade them and pop them on a location spot, and then trigger the actions/bonuses that unlocks (depending on their mutations and strength). Then at the end of the round, score for the elements you have installed on your personal airship, as well as where you are on the element tracks.
But Mutagen offers more than more than a simple, rinse-and-repeat worker placement gaming experience. Apart from The Robot, the other crew members can be modified, and every single location offers up umpteen combinations that take you down a different path to points each turn, let alone each round and each game! And the more workers at a spot, the more powerful actions can become. Intertwined with the main mechanisms are also set collection (those tree cards won’t score themselves!) and what feels like meta puzzles. For example, using storage tiles, your airship can gather elements (crystal, gas, liquid, and ore) for points. But with placement restrictions increasing with the more tiles you add, and knowing you might not want to lock elements away, the do I do this or do I do that dilemma goes up with every move.
Big Sky!
So the first thing we noticed when getting the bits out of the box was the board! Unfolding it felt like a voyage of discovery before we had even started playing the game. Locations offer multiple slots which generously provide actions – location, worker, and mutation based. And generosity is a recurring theme here. Whether it is through the upgrades you get to add to your crew members, or the actions they are carrying out, it feels like you can collect (or convert) a lot of resources into more stuff or straight up points. At 2P, even with fewer available spaces, we rarely felt disappointed by not being able to go to a spot to trigger what we wanted. You also get to score tracks and airship elements again at the end of each round, so the draw of creating a quasi engine out of your elements to capitalise on compounding is undeniable.
But then, having set down the board, the crew came into view! The Robot, the Thug, The Spy, and The Engineer – one set for each player, and very cool looking. Not to mention each having their own strengths (and weaknesses) which you’ll try to place in the right spot at the ideal time to make the most of their individual elements!
These customisable wooden meeples in the deluxe version (and also planned as an add-on) have actual mini plastic glove upgrades representing their enhanced powers! My math is terrible but even I can see a whole heap of potential combinations with 4 different workers and 20 possible mutations! And whilst this dressing-up might appear like it could be a bit of a gimmick or an unnecessary toy factor, the big draw of Mutagen is the way in which the crew develop – how their powers grow and what those enhancements enable you to do around the remainder of the board post beefing up. And this leads into how that impacts upon the decisions other players (and you) make as turns are taken and tactics for short term benefit and strategies for ultimate victory play out. So having this represented in a tactile way rather than just collecting cards showing the upgrades feels right for the game. It also helps ensure we didn’t forget to max out on the improvements we had collected.
Time for a change?
Mutagen has a cool arc, and by that we mean that your priorities and direction changes as you go through the rounds. In our games, early turns and even the first round or two, we found to be heavily focussed on grabbing shard fragments. But as the game progresses, for us it became less about collecting them and more about leveraging those shards in order to set ourselves up for maximum scoring potential. And the way in which actions open out reminds us a little of Lost Ruins of Arnak – the combo-ing, cascading nature of placing a single worker can result in a lot of gains. Although Mutagen gives a lot more once those crew members are working at capacity! The versatility of the elements also feels like it expands the more mutations and upgrades you have acquired earlier in the game. Overall, the way the various actions interact with each other is really interesting, and we have enjoyed our time with the prototype of Mutagen.
Expanding the Elements!
Although we haven’t played them, we can confirm that two expansions have been designed for Mutagen – one by David Turczi and another by Johnny Pac Cantin. There’s also a solo mode designed by David Digby. With pedigrees like that, we have a feeling the original design by Alexandros Kapidakis is going to enjoy its own high level mutations that bring additional and synapse sizzling elements to the gameplay! If you want to find out more abut these and Mutagen (which has just funded – congratulations Dranda!) check out the Kickstarter page here!
Please note that a copy of this game was kindly provided by the publishers for review. I am not paid for my comments, however, and all opinions are my own. I am also not affiliated to or sponsored by any retail store.
