Overview
MetroNet is a two to four player tile placement game where players aim to hold the lead in as many infrastructure categories as possible by the time tiles run out! MetroNet was originally inspired by mycelium networks, where mushrooms cooperate and share nutrients with each other to ensure their survival as a group. In MetroNet, any players involved in the placement of new tiles score points, whether they were the one placing the tile or not!
MetroNet features a deck of 25 city tiles, each with three sides. Each time a player places a tile onto the board, they score points in any categories they matched with another tile, and the player they built off of does as well. At the end of the game, which is when the tiles run out, the player with the most categories they have the most points in wins the game!
During the game, each player must carefully consider which categories they consider their lead to be safe in, which categories they would like to contest, which categories they have no interest in (if there are any), and which tile placement would give them the greatest edge. There’s always a contest occurring somewhere, so each player has to keep their guard up!
Video Explanation
Playtesting
MetroNet is my most successful multiplayer game to date! It sits comfortably alongside Endless as a very accessible, family friendly game, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have complexity as well. While my abstract strategies primarily focus on location of movable pieces, the tiles in MetroNet are static, with the dynamic element of the game being the category scores, which are constantly in motion.
MetroNet’s been tested at the following locations:
- PAX East
- Origins Game Fair
- BOINGA
- Omar’s World of Comics
- Chicago Toy and Game Fair
- Boston FIG
And, just like my other games, many playtests with friends and family!
MetroNet has probably seen the most dramatic series of changes out of my games! It started out as Rooted, which had the mushroom theme I mentioned earlier. Rooted didn’t have different categories of points, which simplified player decision making, but kept the game too simple to allow deeper strategies to shine through. But that’s why you playtest! Around June 2024, I started to rethink the mechanics of Rooted, and within a few weeks of tinkering, the mechanics for MetroNet were pretty much done (there was still some fine tuning to do, though)! It was hard to come up with a way for a mushroom-based theme to work with these new mechanics, so it became city themed, and a bunch of playtesting later (and a submission to the Young Inventor Challenge) the game it is now was finally created!
MetroNet is currently my most polished non-abstract strategy, but I’m looking to challenge that with some new prototypes I’ve got in the works!
