1-100 Players
Designer: Harry Metcalf
Artist: Harry Metcalf
Publisher: Doopy Games
This is an usual situation for my previews and I already talked about this game before. It was actually one of my favorite games of 2024. But now they’re coming up with a fancy and improved version, which is enough of an excuse to talk about this game again.
Cartographers, For Real Now
In Fantasy Map Maker, each game will have 5 goals related to various aspects of the map. Each turn two dice are rolled, one will select which wedge of features are available, and the other the size of the feature.
Features come in 3 basic types, each with basic restrictions on how to be drawn. Big features cover intersections, long features cross vertical lines, small features individually need to be in the same square, but can be spread. There are also features that are drawn according to coordinates, and give you special abilities.
Each type of quest awards points for how the features are drawn and interact, and the player loses points for map errors, such as rivers starting from nowhere, incomplete shorelines and similar issues.
Featuring: Features
The thing I enjoy about the most about Fantasy Map Maker is the artistic liberty. As long as you keep simple guidelines, your map is your own. You can have skinny mountain ranges or huge crags, dinky little streams of rivers so large they can house islands. Even if you’re being strategic and thinking just about the points, there is still a lot of room for creativity.
The wedge of features system is really interesting. You need to balance what you use to have more opportunities open, while still thinking about the numbers you associate with each feature. Space is limited, so if you care about forests, you need to be putting on small mountains for example.
The Improved Edition
This improved edition changes little of the gameplay, but it adds so much in terms of quality. First, the obvious one, big tarot sized cards for the quests and events. The art is gorgeous, the layout is clear and the examples drive the point home.
But just as good are the sheets. The layout is the same, but now each sheet has an unique configuration of the wedge, giving each game its our structure and strategy.
Epic, Once Again
Fantasy Map Maker keeps its place in one of my favorite print and plays of recent years. It’s clever, but yet so approachable. You can bring this out to any group and I think it’s going to be a hit, specially if they have this artistic itch.
But, artistry is not necessary. I mean, I’m awful at drawing, but I still get to look at my finished sheets and see not only a fun game I played, but this fragment of a world I want to be part of.
The boxed edition will be on crowdfunding on February 1st. Don’t miss it!
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