Lands of Amazement – Build A Better Park

Step right up, step right up! We got an incredible amusement park here! You might even call it an AMAZEMENT park!

Lands of Amazement is a solo game by Scott Almes, published by Button Shy Games. As with most Button Shy titles, Lands of Amazement is just 18 cards in a small wallet, and a full game takes 20-30 minutes. You’ll layer cards to make shapes representing amusement park layouts.

How to Play

Begin your game by picking a Megapark (goal) card. Shuffle the 15 regular Park cards face-down, then place one on the Megapark, covering just the word “Portfolio”.

Deal four cards as your starting deck. Then split the remaining Park cards into three equal-ish piles and flip each pile face up. You should only be able to see the top card of each pile.

In a typical round, draw the top card from the deck and use it towards creating a “park”, with an icon layout matching one of the three face-up templates.

The next card you draw can continue contributing to the first park or be dedicated to a second simultaneous park creation.

How to Build a Park

When you add cards to a park, they may be placed side-by-side or overlap; the icons must be aligned to make a contiguous shape.

Each card can only be used for one of its two shapes. You can’t connect the second shape to the park!

Don’t completely cover a card – if a card is in the park, it must contribute at least one small square icon to the layout.

You must “cover” all the squares shown in the park plan, but you may include extra squares.

You can re-arrange cards in a given park layout at any time. But you can’t move a card to a different park.

We Made a Park!

Once you have matched up with a Park layout, take the completed Park card (and all the cards used to make it) and discard them. If you matched the template exactly, without showing any extra squares, you may also use the special ability on the completed Park template card.

End of the Day

When the deck runs out, the round is over. Move any incomplete constructions to the discard pile. Then, from the discard pile, pick at least one card to reserve, placing it on top of the other card(s) on the MegaPark. If you have any cards matching the icon(s) for this round, you must pick one to reserve.

Then move the reserve pile down one line on the Megapark and start the next round.

Build the Megapark

After four rounds, it’s time to build the Megapark! Set aside the unfinished parks and your remaining discard pile. Use all your reserved cards to build a park according to the pattern on the Megapark card.

You’ll take penalties for missing squares and extra squares that don’t belong. Try to make sure all the icons on the card are represented, too – you’ll take a penalty for each icon from in the portfolio that is missing from your final layout.

For more advanced players, take a penalty point for any park plan left unfinished after the fourth round.

A perfect score is zero, but anything less than five penalty points is still a “capable planner”.

Impressions

Like many Button Shy games, the rules for Lands of Amazement are compressed to fit on a tiny pamphlet. Unless you look for more resources to learn the game (I recommend this playthrough), your first few plays will feel very awkward.

It takes time to synthesize what you actually do here. It took me four plays until I felt like I understood my goal and the path to get there.

But hey, that’s one of the reasons why I’m here: to help you understand the game better and decide if it will work for you.

So let’s work backwards. Your ultimate goal is to build a perfect Megapark.

To do that, you need just the right cards in your reserve: symbols matching the portfolio list, and enough options to piece together the Megapark shape – but not too many. The final Megapark needs to use all the cards you’ve reserved, with at least one icon showing from each.

You reserve cards from your discard pile at the end of each round. And every time you complete a park plan, you add its card to your discard. So the more parks you can build in a round, the more cards you’ll have to choose from.

Remember, you don’t actually need to match shapes perfectly in order to “build” a given park, only to use its special power. If you can get close – with just a square or two “extra” showing – you can still complete the plan. Do this to have more choices to reserve, and more shapes to use in the next round.

Amazed – or Confused?

Lands of Amazement is a hard puzzle to solve, with a lot of layers. Unlike other polyomino placement puzzles, you’ll always have two choices of polyomino on a card – and you’ll only ever be able to use one. You’ll also want to overlap your shapes, at edges and on corners, to make the perfect fit. But remember: completing parks, while satisfying, is not the real goal here.

You are building your toolkit of reserved cards in order to build your Megapark. And here is where the difficulty ramps up further. Every element that is not EXACTLY correct on the Megapark makes you take a penalty – filled in squares that are supposed to be empty, empty squares that are supposed to be filled in, and icons that are missing.

And even then, your best possible score is zero. That feels a little unsatisfying.

I think Lands of Amazement is going to be very polarizing. Most gamers are going to find it either dry or too difficult. But polyomino lovers looking for a hard puzzle are going to love the multi-layered thinking required.

Get it directly from Button Shy Games, or ask for it at your local game store.

---

The Family Gamers received a copy of Lands of Amazement from Button Shy Games for this review.