Your cart is currently empty!
Futuropia is one of those games that gives me a violent nostalgia kick, right straight into my personal lalaland. I must confess that Friedemann Friese is the designer who makes my day—the mechanical approach, the components, the theme, and the illustrations all harken back to my childhood and my love for cardboard and miniaturized components.
Futuropia feels like a lost ’80s game brought back by an extravagant publisher, reissuing the classic that never was. Some might say the artwork sucks, the components are all over the place, and the choice to use paper money is not in line with the contemporary board game hobby… but I think I get where Friese wants us to go: to that place where you get money mad about blue dollar banknotes and elaborate on your web of robotic minions to win the game. All design options add a specific Mojo, a surreal and funny vibe, and the cardboard lunacy I expect when having fun with board games.
The Good
Mechanically, the game is very well-balanced. The Food and Energy production market is clever and adds to decision complexity. I found it interesting that money is a big part of the game—you produce, consume, and buy stuff, and this will be your turn. It has a bit of the mind space of a resource management game with a funky vibe of letting humans slack while the robots do all the work. The game loop is fun, and I’m sure it will hit the table very often. I just love the illustrations; they remind me of my infancy books explaining space stations or ancient structures, with cool retro rough-looking illustrations. It’s not for everybody, but I like that strange artistic option.
You can play solo and up to 4 players. I’m not a fan of solo games but it’s a great way to learn and teach the game.
The Ok
It might feel a bit repetitive—the 5-actions loop is interesting enough to experiment with and do some trial and error, but after a while, the sequence is more or less the same, which is okay because you feel you are getting a grip on your management options. Table presence is funky; it might be annoying to OCD guys who want all aligned and evenly spaced—I’m one of those guys. Final scoring is a bit all over the place, but I think it brings a bit of surprise to the end and can be a strategy-steering option for future games.
The Bad
The end game trigger is a bit anticlimactic, and the game feels a bit short, even if the first game took around 2 hours to finish. You build your stuff, and it feels that the game ends a bit before you get insanely rich and take over the world—maybe it’s a balancing design option to make you rush on final turns. It’s a game you end up playing alone together, with the only interaction being the market dispute for production machines and condos. Other interactions around market cost and income are barely visible.
My rating: 4/5
Why would I play it again?: Anytime
Why should I skip it?: On a late night or when very tired. You need to get your math demon running all the time.
Will I sell it?: Only to get a deluxe version of the same game