Mint Control

Assert your influence and monopolize the market in Mintopia City!

When COVID hit, I needed a way to play board games with my friends and family. I discovered Tabletopia, which is where I stumbled upon Mint Works and fell in love with its design and short play period. You can read my first-ever game review about it here (clearly, my reviews have become much more in-depth). I later decided to back a Kickstarter that included three new games: Mint Cooperative, Mint Delivery, and Mint Control.

In Mint Control, you are a competing mint factory trying to earn the most market shares. Take actions to place your mint creations across various locations, from supermarkets to city hall. After placing all your candies, whoever controls the best locations at the end of the game, wins.

The Kickstarter ran smoothly and I received my games, excited to learn how many unique variations the designer Justin Blaske can come up with in a tiny tin! I’m not usually the best at Area Control, but I figured this bite-sized game would be a good introduction to it. Disclaimer: This article is based on my first and only play through as a two-player game.

Mechanics & Categories: Area control, Economics, Action drafting

ART: 4/10

There isn’t “art” per se, just graphic design elements. This game mirrors everything the original Mint Works game offers: aged or worn-looking cards that appear slightly dirty, as if they survived the apocalypse in a mint tin. It’s a flavorful touch. This version has cute teeny candies in vibrant colors that nicely align with mint flavors: cinnamon, grape, spearmint, and peppermint.

The iconography makes sense and reasonably describes the rule of the action or what happens during a specific event. The choice of red is what I would expect for an area control or more confrontational game.

STORYTELLING: 3/10

Offers more of a story than Mint Works. It does seem to “place your product” in the consumer market at (some) locations that tend to make sense. Other than that, there isn’t anything that screams “story” to me. Mints as currency also don’t make sense, but I know they are there for the art and experience.

COMPONENTS: 4/10

Given there are so few components, they do a decent job. The mints are nicer than cardboard punch-outs and are made of wood. The most significant downside was that this game seemed rushed and had little QA applied during production. One of my mints looks like a doubly-thick mint, while another is just a shaving.

The itty bitty candies are colorful wood that looks like they have wrappers. It’s honestly adorable. The cards are thin, but at least they have the air cushion finish. The action tiles are thick cardboard. The container is a glossy tin with the logo embossed on the front, which feels and looks polished.

COMPLEXITY: 3/10

This is scoring a three because some locations are confusing to understand with a lack of clarifications in the rulebook. The entire game consists of earning mints and spending them to place candies onto locations while ousting your opponents from those locations. That is all. With a limited choice of actions per round, it should be clear what action to take, whether gaining mints to place a candy in a later round or spending those mints to do something.

There is a slight amount of complexity here as you need to decide whether to place all your mints or balance placing them and removing your opponents. When you remove an opponent, they earn a benefit, so you must make intelligent choices. As we saw in our first game, some actions were so obvious that we did the same things repeatedly. Not a great experience.

TRAVEL-FRIENDLY: 10/10

Intentionally designed as a travel game. It can fit in your pocket, and the real estate to play is relatively small. You need to be sure not to lose one of your mints or the tiny candies! The mint count is relevant, so be extra careful. But other than that, you could play this on the airplane if you wanted!

UNIQUENESS: 3/10

It is already cool to make a game about mints make sense and be fun to play. It’s another to adapt that game and explore other popular mechanics like area control. Making it work with limited components and real estate is impressive despite the core playing of the game is like so many other economic games.

Innovation:

Who knew you could use mints and make a game out of them? And making a decent game fit into a mint tin is cool. Everyone loves a good travel game, especially if there’s some strategy involved!

Final Comments

I loved Mint Works, the first ‘Mint’ game I ever played. It is a solid filler game that can be played quickly. Not a mind-blowing game, but perfect for its genre. I was excited about this Mint Control, but ultimately disappointed by our first play. It could be the locations we played, or maybe because it was a two-player game, but we did not have a good experience.

The rulebook has many issues, and we broke the game within three turns. I’m unsure how quickly this was produced, but it felt rushed and under-tested. Several forums on Board Game Geek have many users issuing similar complaints and issues. By turn three of our game, it was apparent that I had won with zero reasons to keep playing. We also learned that with two players it is possible that one action may NEVER be taken by the other.

On another note, copy editing is just as crucial as playtesting. The rulebook is riddled with typos and also lacks numerous clarifying questions. One side explains the solo and AI rules, which is fantastic that they offer this, but so many location cards need their own FAQ. It’s impossible to play a game when you don’t know how the designer intended an interaction to happen. These things are critical in a rulebook. Even the setup graphic conflicts with the rules. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Let me know in the comments if playing with more players or different locations improves the game. I like the direction they went to keep it just like Mint Works. It has potential, but it definitely left a bad taste for us, so unless someone convinces me of the best locations to play with for two players, I won’t pick this up again.

Similar To: Mint Works, San Juan

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Publisher: Poketto (no website)

Game(s) Pictured: Mint Control