Our step-by-step guide to how to play Meeple Land Board Game. Meeple Land is a park management game that has you looking after an ever-growing park, as well as, the customers that must make it work. This is an interesting game that is unlike anything else out there. You have space and money to manage but you also need to weigh time in how you are going to go after your potential visitors. Learning how to play Meeple Land has lots of steps but picking it up is fairly easy.
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HOW TO PLAY MEEPLE LAND – WHAT IS IT?
Build the most prestigious amusement park of all time! Buy the most exciting rides, offer the best services, and welcome as many visitors as possible. Respond to the public’s needs and success will come your way! Be careful not to neglect visitors as unhappy guests will damage your reputation.
Purchase rides and services and connect their paths strategically (while avoiding dead ends) to welcome as many visitors as possible in your park. Collect revenue from your visitors to continue building. At the end of the game, win reputation points based on the number of rides in your park, and the number of visitors. However not all visitors will rate your park highly, and any visitors left at the entrance will make you lose reputation points. May the park with the best reputation win.
HOW TO PLAY MEEPLE LAND – STEP BY STEP
Time Needed: Approximately 45 minutes.
This is a step by step guide for how to play Meeple Land the popular park management board game. Additional notions and special rules can be found below the list. These will be referenced for your convenience.
1. SETUP | Place Parking Lot Board & Track
To kicks off how to play Meeple Land setup, take the gray parking lot board game put in in the center of the table. Put the meeple land guy token on the “1” spot of the track along the top left side.
2. SETUP | Bring Out Bus Cards
Take the bus cards and shuffle them up into a face-down deck. Flip over cards into empty spaces along the right of the parking lot board equal to the number of players plus one.
3. SETUP | Add Bus Meeples
Each bus will show a number of meeples and what color they are. Take this many of the little wooden person figures and place them on each bus card, making sure you are matching color. Put the remaining meeples in a central area as they will need to be accessed again.
4. SETUP | Put Out Coins
There are “1” silver and “5” gold coins that will need to be used. Put them out in a central location for all players
5. SETUP | Put Out Plot Extension Sheets & Extra Starting Locations
There is a stack of thin green sheets divided into nine squares. These are the plot extensions and should be placed in a central location for everyone. Put out a number equal to the number of players. The same is true for the extra entrance tiles. They are the squares with the path and meeple depicted.
6. SETUP | Put Out Communcal Attractions
Now deal out the communal attraction tiles randomly from stacjs of each type. There are the large squares (put out 3 of these), medium rectangles (put out 5 of these) and small squares (flip up 5 of these). Put the rest in face down stacks of each type next to the flipped up tiles.
7. SETUP | Give Out Player Board Elements
Each player takes a large green park sheet, a scoresheet and a park entrance (two plastic pillars and blue cardboard sign connecting them). Place the entrace next to the path symbol on the green player park sheet. You also need a writing utencil
8. SETUP | Determine First Player
Determine a starting player. The rule is the last person to visit an amusement park, but go ahead and use the randomizer of your choice. They get the blue first player token.
9. SETUP | Take Money Based On Position
The final step of how to play Meeple Land setup before getting into gameplay is taking money. Starting with the first player, everyone takes a certain amount from the bank based on where they are. The 1st player gets $0, the 2nd player gets $1, 3rd player $2 and the 4th player $3.
10. GAMEPLAY | Step 1 Recieve Grant
All players receive money based on where the meeple land guy token is on the track on the bus parking card. In the first round, for example, everyone receives $15. Take this money from the bank now.
11. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action
Purchase any single tile from the face up attraction, a plot extension or a new entrance. The price is in the bottom right corner. Regardless of how much money you have, with this choice you can only ever get one thing. If you buy you pay that amount to the bank, take it, and replace it with one from the facedown stack of the same type.
12. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Placing Tile Basics
Whenever you get a tile, you place it anywhere in your park grid where there is space. The only requirement is that it fits perfectly into the grid and at least one of the paths connects with another path. That is the only requirement but it is not what you should shoot for. You also want to make sure paths line up. This will help you deliver customers to rides but also, you get penalties for any dead ends. Tiles can never move once placed.
13. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Mark Scoresheet
Any time you add any of the 12 different kinds of attractions to your park for the first time, check off the related box from the scoresheet. The type is pictured in the center of the attraction and is hard to miss. The better variety, the more points you get at the end.
14. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Meeple Servicing
There are two different types of tiles, attractions and services. The attractions will have colored meeples printed in the corner. This indicates that this attraction can handle that many of those colored people. Some meeples may have a symbol by them like a present or a burger. This is a service need. For these people to be serviced, the attraction would need to be adjacent and directly connected to a service of that type. These are tile you buy like anything else but don’t service meeples on their own.
15. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Adding Plot Extensions
In addition to adding in tiles, you can also buy one park extension during the game as your item for $6. Place this on any side of your park and you can then use that space to continue building services and attractions. Gridlines must line up.
16. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Extra Entrance
Similar to the park extension, you can buy one additional park entrance during the game as your item for $3. This lets you create new paths from it.
17. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Advertising
Advertising are the just backs of the small square tiles. Each one is going to show two different color meeples and that is all you need to know, you do not need to then collect this tile. If you buy this for $2 you get the two meeples shown to add to your park. Put that advertisement at the bottom of the stack to reveal a new tile. This is part of your one action, just like you could buy a new attraction/service, an extender or a new entrance, the advertisement is an item that would be your one for the turn.
18. GAMEPLAY | Step 2 Take Action | Repeat Until Pass
Players all take turns going around the circle taking actions. This keeps going, one player at a time until everyone passes. Once a player passes, they are out for the rest of the round but they get to immediately then go to the bus parking card and take a bus of their choice. This is the most complex part of how to play Meeple Land so do not worry if you are a bit confused.
19. GAMEPLAY | Step 3 Collect Meeples | Take Bus
Once you pass, you get to take one of the available buses from the depot and added the meeples from it to your park. If you are the first to pass in a four player game, you will get your choice of five options, where last to pass is stuck with whatever. Weighing that decision is key. Put the bus at the entrance to your park and wait for all players to complete this.
20. GAMEPLAY | Step 4 Welcome Visitors
Players all do this simultaneously. Take the meeples from your bus and place them on any open space matching their color. It is one meeple per one space and remember in order to take care of the ones with service requirements, they need to be adjacent and with paths connected. The remaining meeples hang out by the entrance and can now be added at any time (during other phases for example) to any open spots you have.
21. GAMEPLAY | Step 5 Earning Revenue
Here each player receives $1 for every visitor currently in their park. This does not include meeples hanging out by the entrance because they haven’t been placed yet. If any meeple is on a space with a “$” then they get an extra $1 for that filled space. Take that money from the bank now.
22. GAMEPLAY | Step 6 Adjust First Player
At this phase, whoever has the least amount of money will take the first player token to be the action in the next round. In a tie, whoever is ever closest on the clockwise path from the current first player gets it.
23. GAMEPLAY | Step 7 Refresh Bus Cards
Move up the remaining bus card to the top spot and deal out new bus cards until the total is again the number of players plus one. Add the meeple tokens as shown on each card.
24. GAMEPLAY | Step 8 Move Up Grant Token
Move the token on the upper right side of the bus parking tracking up one number. This will mean a higher amount of money given out each round.
25. GAMEPLAY | Repeat For Four Rounds
The game takes place over four of these rounds. You repeat this 8 step process a total of four times. Once you are about to move the grant tracker and it is on the “4” you know the game is over.
26. SCORING | Total Number Of Attractions
At the top part of your score sheet you should have all the different types of attractions in your park. Next to it shows the scoring based on the total you got. If you got 10 out of 12 you would get 15 points for example. Service tiles do not count for this.
27. SCORING | Total Number of Meeples
If you scroll to the middle of the score sheet you get positive points for meeples in your park and negative points for meepls outside. Greens and blues are worth 1 point while pink and oranges are worth $2 each.
28. SCORING | Negative Points For Dead Ends
Finally, at the bottom of the score sheet you can see a symbol that indicates you get -2 points for any dead end path in your park. This is a path symbol that hit the side of another tile and when unconnected. Count all these up and write your final total. Paths left open but are not cut off do not count against you.
29. WINNING | High Score Wins
Each player adds up these three different aspects and the total high score wins. If there is a tie, the player with the least amount of points deducted wins.
HOW TO PLAY MEEPLE LAND – KEY INFORMATION
ATTACTION BREAKDOWN
Here is the breakdown of how many of each attraction are available:
Merry Go Round – 9
Chair Swivel – 8
Bumper Cards – 8
Pirate Train – 7
Snail Coaster – 7
Ferris Wheel – 6
Western Show – 5
Pirate Ship Swing – 5
Water Coaster – 5
Rocketship Spinner – 4
Rocket Rollercoaster – 4
Cactus Slide – 8
GAME CONTENTS
- 4x Individual Plot Boards
- 1x Parking Lot Board
- 4x Plot Extension Tiles
- 4x Extra Park Entrance Tiles
- 101x Attraction Service Tiles
- 17x Bus Tiles
- 124x Visitor Meepls
- 1x Park Ticket First Player Token
- 1x Round Meeple Land Guy Token
- 52x Coins
- 4x Player Park Entrances
- 1x Scorecard Notebook
- 2x How To Play Meeple Land Booklets (English/French)
HOW TO PLAY MEEPLE LAND – IN CLOSING
We hope you can now say you know how to play Meeple Land. This park management game has you making lots of decisions and weighing how much time you should spend on construction and how much on appeasing your customers. The game may have many steps but picking it up is a breeze. Also how can you not enjoy the ride, pun intended, when you are playing with such adorable little meeple tokens.
