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Machi
Koro

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Play OverviewPlay Overview

Machi Koro (2012) is a world-building game where you create a thriving city full of different buildings and landmarks. You play by rolling dice, collecting money and buying buildings with unique powers. It is a game of building big and building quickly and struggling to stay ahead of your competition till the end.

You play as a newly elected mayor building a city by placing cards in front of you. It's like Monopoly, but everyone has their own city that generates income from shared dice rolls. You choose which Building cards to purchase with an eye for their special powers.

As you progress, you can afford ever more complex buildings, with better powers. Some buildings let you steal from other players. For example, a Cafe gains two Income tokens when three is rolled and one Income token from the player who rolled it. The challenge is balancing spend on new buildings while having enough to pay your opponents when you have to. The winner is the first player to build all four of the expensive Landmark cards.

What starts as a simple world-building game, quickly becomes a cutthroat money-making endeavour, where you must build a more powerful city to take money from other players. It's more expansive than Monopoly because the multiple versions of each building let you build things how you want.

Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked Machi Koro 22 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 14 months ago.
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Play StylePlay Style

This is a Sequencing and World Building game with Collecting, Race and Strategy elements. You can play with 2 to 4 players in the same room. Best with 4 players.

 
You can play this game in the following styles:

DurationDuration

Learn to Play: This takes 20 minutes to learn. This is a fairly simple game to learn how to play, as its mechanics are easy to understand. However, you need to invest time in knowing what each of the Building cards does and how they develop your ability to generate income.

The first time you play it's worth trying the following:
  • Sort the Building cards into piles of the same type and try to understand their powers.
  • Be sure that you understand the four colours and how they generate income.
  • Help each other out by taking time to ensure that each player gets the correct amount of generated income on each roll.

Play Time: This game will take between 25 minutes and 40 minutes to complete.

Age RatingsAge Ratings

Skill Level

8+ year-olds usually have the required skill to enjoy this game. Younger players need to be able to grasp the powers of all the Building cards and be able to make strategic decisions about how to spend their income.

Content Rating

We rate this suitable for 3+ years-olds.

CostsCosts

There are no additional in-game purchases, loot boxes, adverts or subscription costs.
 
There are a number of versions of this game, which all share the same rules, cards and pieces. However, the most recent Fifth Edition has larger cards, larger dice and plastic money tokens. 
 

DetailsGame Details

Release Date: 01/01/2012

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Players: 2-4

Genres: Sequencing, World Building (Collecting, Race and Strategy)

Accessibility: 0 features documented (Tweet Developer )

Components: Cards and Tokens

Developer: Pandasaurus Game (@PandasaurusGame)


Taming Gaming Book Written by parents for parents, the database complements the in-depth discussion about video game addiction, violence, spending and online safety in the Taming Gaming book. We are an editorially independent, free resource without adverts that is supported by partnerships.

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