The Manhattan Project

…They all were digging up some Yellowcake. For all they wanted was a biggest blast of their lives. The End. Not really, I won’t let you off that easy. You’ll get to suffer me for another 10 minutes at least. I promise it will be explosive. Let’s get fulminating!

Here I shall build my fission temple (Summary of gameplay)
Manhattan Project, as name implies, is a worker placement game revolving around nuclear weapon arms race. You lead one (colorful) nation to victory by building best bombs, in other words reach the VP limit first.

Game consists of main board and each players personal board where they can build their own buildings and manage their fighter and bomber forces, which are there so you can be aggressive against other players and hinder their progress or protect yourself against aggressive players.

There are 3 different kind of workers, scientist, engineer and laborer. There are also freelancer versions (grey) of all of them, which are available for all players, some like to call them Mexicans, I explain later why. All of them have their special benefit on the board, so sorting them on proper assignments is important. For instance laborers are excellent way to get Yellowcake so you can free up your scientist to enrich some of it to Uranium, while your engineer trains new workforce. Which is one of the best aspects of this game, you need to think tactically and do the math in your head how to achieve as much as possible you can in one turn.

All players start with set of workers and money, which scales depending on how far you’re down from starting player to level up the playing field. Then you get to place one worker on main board and as many workers of any kind on your personal board as you can, which is difficult at beginning, in middle game it’s rather easy and late game you have to figure out how to max up your efficiency on one turn. After you others place their workers, then you rinse and repeat, until you can’t play anymore on board. When you can’t play workers anymore you have to spend your turn to remove all your workers from board, of course you can choose to do this anytime you wish, but it always ends your turn there. At this point your freelancers or Mexicans are returned to general supply while your personal workers return to your work pool to be used again. So people call them Mexicans because they’re used and then discarded back to their home, fairly fitting description and same time a justified statement on underpaid labor without union rights. In the game they’re a great asset though and they can get you through a tough pinch.

At some point when you have enough Uranium and/or Plutonium you get bomb designs and start building it. There involves some own mechanics, but essentially you score victory points from it. Also as an nice touch you can test your first Plutonium bomb to convert it to few VP’s, but later Plutonium bombs are worth more VP’s.

Let’s get you your suspender-jeans (Components)
Main board looks like a bulleting board from your work place, it’s full of notes and papers that seem completely useless, but in this case they have use. It is innovative and clever way of disguising the board. It has thematic feel to it, same cannot be said from personal player boards which are bland looking.

Workers are just basic cardboard cutouts, but they have good art on them which sort of remind me of minions from Despicable Me. So my personal army of minions. Minions are from thick cardboard so they’re durable and easy to pick up, which is very good considering you have to move them rather frequently.

Coin art is based on Manhattan Project (the real one) emblem, which is really nice touch. They’re your basic money tokens, not much to say about them, but can’t help but feel that there could have been few more of them in case, not that I ever ran out of them, since you spend them in fast pace. On a last note bomb schematic names are amusing and descriptive.

One wrong move and we’ll blow to kingdom come! So no pressure (Learning curve)
This game is really simple to learn, you can only place workers on your turn or remove them all from board. Symbols are clear and you really don’t need to consult the rulebook. However don’t be fooled by that, this game is difficult if you want to win. You need to be calculative, clever and ruthless to get there.

Learning the basics is easy, but winning and out thinking your opponents takes effort. And rightly so, that makes this a good game.

What a pretty mushroom… (Conclusion)
This is without a doubt my favorite worker placement game thus far. Proper chance to get all mathematical and enjoy the pleasure when I can place all of my workers in a single turn for maximum efficiency.

It is also a good chance to teach your kids some mathematical thinking and history as a side dish. If we forget our past we’re doomed to repeat it. Things in past won’t go away just because they might be a touch subject. Still I can see why some shun this game for the theme on it.

For people who find this topic morally questionable, you never actually use the bomb against anybody. You just build them. And it is really fun game and you get to use that calculative evil mind of your.

I really advice to get this game if you like worker placement games, because this is one from the challenging end of that genre.

The Manhattan Project’s main problem is its theme. Which as its name suggests, has to do with the design and building of the atom bomb. For some, this may be in poor taste. Which also means that any board game or indeed computer game, like say, Civilisation, in which nuclear weapons are deployed and detonated, is in equally poor taste—if not more so. That said, no nuclear weapons are detonated in The Manhattan Project and nobody dies, either through atomisation or radiation poisoning. Some workers may get sent to the mines though…

The Manhattan Project is a worker placement game for two to five players, aged thirteen and up. Each takes control of a country’s atom bomb project and attempts to build the most effective program. Starting with a few workers and a little money, they train engineers and scientists; construct buildings—universities, factories, mines, and reactors; build up their air forces—bombers and fighters; research bomb designs; and conduct espionage against each other, all in a race to see who can build the biggest bombs (and score the most Victory Points).

The game is built around a simple mechanic—worker placement. Each turn a player must either place his workers on the board or retrieve them. When placing them, a player must place one worker on the main board, but can place as many workers as he likes on his own buildings. When retrieving them, he must remove all of those previously placed.

The game revolves around the Main Board. This has spaces for the Building Cards—six initial cards followed by the regular buildings; spaces to place workers to gain money, engineers, scientists, workers, fighters, bombers, and yellow cake—which is turned into Uranium and Plutonium; conduct airstrikes and repair buildings; and fuel tracks to monitor each player’s Uranium and Plutonium, and how many spies he can assign to other players’ empty buildings.

Each player has a Player Board. Here he tracks the number of fighters and bombers he has and places any buildings purchased. A player also has four labourers, but gains up to four engineers and four scientists as play progresses. If these are not enough, he can hire contractors, but they will do only one task each.

Initially, each player has limited options. He can only place a single worker on the Main Board—and needs not only scientists and engineers, but also his own buildings if he wants to place more workers on subsequent turns. As play progresses, he will gain more workers and buildings, giving him more options for placing his workers—even more if he has invested in espionage and can send his workers to use other players’ buildings. A player is not obliged to place all of his workers on a turn, but he must place one on the Main Board at the very least.

When a player runs out of workers or because he wants to, he can retrieve all of his workers. He can start placing them again on later turns, but part of playing The Manhattan Project is knowing when to retrieve and when to place them. It is a matter of timing, more so when espionage is an option and other players’ buildings are available.

Each building gives its benefit as soon as its requirements are fulfilled. This might be as simple as one or two workers or specific worker types to get their output, which can be more workers (including contractors), money, fighters, bombers, or yellow cake. Alternatively, reactors require several engineers and scientists and several pieces of yellow cake in order to produce either Uranium or Plutonium. These have to be placed in one turn rather than added bit by bit.

Eventually a player will want to build a bomb. This works just like any other building, but requires Uranium or Plutonium plus engineers and scientists. Once built, a bomb adds to a player’s Victory Point total, but it can be loaded onto a bomber for more Victory Points. Or it can be imploded. This destroys the bomb, but any subsequent Plutonium device the player builds will be worth more Victory Points.

Apart from espionage, a player can interact with his rivals by attacking them using his air force. He does this by sending his fighters to attack his target’s fighters and then his bombers to target and damage his rival’s buildings. This stops his rival from using them until they are repaired.

Physically, The Manhattan Project is nicely and engagingly presented in a style that apes the look of government style art of the 1940s. The rulebook is also well written and easy to read and understand.

Unfortunately, The Manhattan Project is not perfect. Arguably, the use of espionage is too powerful—though it is a great way to win—and cannot be blocked or stopped, except by the targeted player placing and keeping his own workers on this buildings for as long as possible. The Air Raid mechanic is either too powerful or not powerful enough, as any attempt to destroy another player’s fighters leaves both sides vulnerable to bombing raids. Lastly, the appearance of the building cards is too random; beyond the first six, any card can appear in any order and this can affect the flow of the game. Less effective buildings will sit on the board because no one wants to buy them, whilst a slew of good buildings will force a flurry of activity to buy as quickly as possible. Perhaps a more structured draw could have been included, so that the buildings get progressively better and better as the game progresses?

Put these issues aside, for The Manhattan Project is an excellent game. The game play is very tight, with almost no luck involved and the play time is shorter with practice. It is a pleasing meld of theme with mechanics that reward efficiency.

I just recently got the opportunity to play this game. I had seen it on Kickstarter but did not end up pledging. I had never played a worker placement game before, so this was all new to me.

Given that I had never played a worker-placement game, I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly I was able to pick up the game. I was playing inside of five minutes. The competition for constructions, espionage, production of workers, and ultimately the race to build a bomb was extremely engaging.

However, according to the player running the game, the victory conditions are 45 victory points. Being as how a plutonium bomb with a bomb test and loaded into a bomber can be more than enough to satisfy these conditions. The same can happen with two low-cost uranium bombs played in the same round (which is how our game ended). Because the game can end in one round, it is tough to make much of a competition of it. Our five-player game ended up being 45pts, 8pts, 0pts, 0pts, and 0pts. Because of the all-or-nothing nature of the game, I give it a replay value of 3/5.

What initially drew me to the game was the combination of a serious topic (proliferation of nuclear arms) with components that lighten it up including cutesie-looking meeples. The artwork was impressive while not being too detailed as to detract from the gameplay. I give the components a solid 4/5.

As I mentioned above, we were sat at the table no more than five minutes before play began. It was fairly intuitive and I understood the goals of the game and how one might go about reaching them. However, the newer players did not have much strategy and ended up falling behind. I believe this means the game is easy to learn but difficult to master, so I ended up giving the learning curve a 3/5.

All in all, it is not a bad game. I would play the game again, but I would probably not buy it.