Mariposas

Mariposas is a game of butterfly travel and pollen collection.

The board shows North America, broken into hexes with each hex occupied by either a flower or a Waystation token (in the city hexes) that will be revealed by the first player to reach them. Players begin with a single butterfly in the south, at Michoacan, and in terms of the game’s narrative, fly north in migration, gathering flower tokens which they cash in for more butterflies as they go, before (one hopes) flying south again and hoping to reach Mexico again before the game ends: butterflies at Michoacan will score points. But there are other ways to score, as we shall see…

Over the three seasons of spring, summer and fall, players take turns moving their butterflies by playing movement cards. At the end of each season, the current generation of butterflies dies out, so each have a limited lifespan on the board. In terms of realising the ‘finish line’ of Michoacan with your fourth generation butterflies, the passage of play is simple: collect flowers (by landing on them) and cash in matching sets (or larger random sets) to birth a next-generation butterfly. You also get to add a butterfly for free at the end of spring and summer.

The more generation 4 butterflies you get back to Michoacan, the exponentially bigger your score.  But each season also rewards points in different (randomized) ways to do with the number and location of your butterflies when the season concludes. The waystations also lead to points: landing a butterfly here lets you pick up life cycle cards showing the four stages of the butterfly  (note: some waystations reward you with bonus movements instead) which come in three colours. Every lifecycle card worth a point (a potential 12 points in all) but collecting a set (all 4 of a colour) also triggers in-game or end-game benefits, such as an extra turn at the end of a game, or points for having all types of flower token.

The net result of this trio of divergent goals is choices to be made on both a strategic (Michoacan v Waystations v Season Goals) and tactical level:  you only ever have two movement cards to choose from, and though there’s a fair amount of flexibility over their implementation on the board, you’ll almost inevitably find you can’t get as many butterflies to as many places as you’d like!

There’s also a seam of competition in the visiting of waystations: although anyone can go there and collect the lifecycle card – and players can share spaces – the first to arrive also collects a flower, decided on the roll of a die. Once Fall has been played to it’s conclusion, players tally points and the most wins!