Mercardo is Spanish for market and this is the whole concept of the game. You are a customer spending coin at the market trying to make sure you are the highest-scoring VP player.
What makes this game interesting is the fact the scoreboard can be reversed to change it up and you pick the start location on the board! A nice little concept.
I like to think that this game is a mix of Splendor with Quacks of Quedlingbury and it is fantastic!
What is in the box?
Now let us start with some general information:
Players: 2-4
Age: 10+
Time: 30 minutes
Right we go that out of the way lets look at what you get inside the box!
Inside the box, there is of course a rulebook which we will talk about later, several boards that need punching out, coin bags, then your coins and other tokens.
The coin pieces look okay but on some of mine the paint is all over the place and they look as if they were rushed. The coin bags are okay but do feel cheap, I do not expect them to last. The cardboard pieces are well constructed and feel as if they could survive a nuclear bomb. Overall I am happy with the contents of the box. Just sad that there is no organisation unit to the box and it all just kinda goes back in and they will move around and muddle up.
Setting up the game
Setting up the game is easy and the rulebook explains this process very well. Basically, each player picks a player colour, place the player tag on a coin bag, fill the coin bag with 5 of each coin (no the white ones), take your player board, collect 1 seal, pick a starting point on the scoreboard and place the player tokens on top and finally place 4 item tiles, 2 perfume tiles and both merchant tiles out with enough space to place coins around them.
Look at the photo below to see how this game was set up for the two of us to play.
Do not forget to make sure your coins are in your bag, you place the rest of the items around the score tracker shown in the photo or above or just make sure they are in an easy to reach place for all the players. The main set-up is the bit above all of this.
Setting the game up does not take long, the longest part was shuffling the tiles to make sure they were random every time we played the game.
How the hell do I win this game?
To win the game you need to pass the start token on the score tracker and then hope that everyone else on their last go does not surpass you. That is the entire point of the game!
The start token is the fancy cardboard piece with the swirl pattern on it, this means you need to go around the scoreboard once and then surpass the scoreboard start token to win.
How to play the game?
Firstly I want to mention the rulebook, this does a great job of explaining the rules but I as if certain parts are somehow hidden in the rulebook. Looking online and it seems other people had the same issue.
The turn order is simple
Play a privilege token if you have one
Take an action either;
Draw coins and spend coins
Replenish your coins
That is it! Those are basic actions you do in this game but it does not mean that it is a basic b***h. Far from it! Let us talk about the actions and how they work.
Privilege token, in the 3 games I have played I have not had one of these yet, They need to be used before your pick the main action and once used they are discarded. They can reward you VP points, add coins to your purse and remove fake coins. They are a good way of helping yourself and making other people want to die.
If you go for the first option of drawing coins and spending coins you need to shake your coin purse to make sure the coins are all mixed together.
Take out 3 coins - Now we play if you take out more than 3 they all go back in, shake and draw again. If you have any black coins (these are fake) you put them on your character tile. Now if you have a seal you can once per turn spend a seal to take a further 2 coins out. This is handy when there is something you really want.
We also play the rule that if you start spending you can not use a seal after and soon as a coin is placed and leaves your hand it can not be moved.
Now to spend the coins you place them on the matching coloured side of the tile to your character. You do not need the full amount straight away you are putting down a small payment until the next turn.
You could buy an item outright if you have the required coins to do so.
Once all coins are placed you need to check that no items are complete and if they are, resolve them.
All tiles show you the coins needed to buy the item, the victory points if any you will get for buying the item and any other bonus elements. The rulebook explains all of these in detail so keep it handy for your first time playing! Now if another player does have any coins on the tile the player with the second most coins gets one seal! Unless the tile says that they do not and the merchant tiles have this rule and a few other tiles so keep an eye out for that.
Once the tile is resolved you need to do the following;
The player who won puts the coins on their character tile
All other players put their coins BACK INTO THEIR BAGS
Discard the tile
Place a new tile from the same pile this one came from
Merchant tiles do not get replaced but stay there the entire game and any coins on these tiles must remain!
That is how you draw and spend coins, now you must be thinking wait if the coins I spend go on my player tile how do I get them back? Well, that is the other action you can perform.
The other action is on your turn you pour all the coins from your player tile back into your bag, this means you get all the fake ones you have drawn back into the bag too. Nightmare right! There are some other rules to the game such as white coins once spent go back into the middle and not on to your character tile.
If you use the merchant to collect and instantly use the white coin you need to make sure you can do this.
White coins are any colour coin.
There are more but these are some of the important ones. I recommend that you read the rule book a few times and watch some videos on this game. I watched a video on the game and near enough knew all the rules straight away which is a cheeky bonus.
Final Thoughts
The first game we played we thought it was far too basic and easy, one of us won by a landslide and the other player was left standing in the dust (yes I was of course the one left standing in the dust).
In the second game, I managed to just win by a fraction and we were both thinking the same thing. This game just got interesting!
In the third and final game, it was an all-out buying war with coins going left, right and centre! What made it interesting was the way the scoreboard works and how it is never the same. If you look at the bonuses on the scoreboard you need to plan what you are buying to make sure you land on the best bonuses possible. This meant we were both planning our moves to make sure we win what we need to get the bigger bonus.
Saying that sometimes you need to bid on items to make sure you get a seal because these little red b*****ds can help you, hugely! There were many, many, oh my god so many times I pulled out fake coins and needed a seal to at least get a decent starting hand of coins.
Planning what to spend your coins on and always checking you have the coins needed still in your bag to actually buy the ones you want is so important! Coin management is a huge must in this game! If you are bidding on 2 items that need 6 silver in total well you are buggered! You only have 5 in total and if you have spent some then you are really going to kick yourself. Pay attention people! Yes, I had done this a few times and was getting mad because I could not get a silver coin to see I had used them already. It is something so simple that messed me up several times and that's on me!
After a game or two you know the ropes and the game becomes easier and quicker to play. But it is still fun you enjoy the game or I should say I did. There were a few moments I hated the game for f***ing me over but at no point did I want to stop. I love games that make me feel this way.
I would say play it and enjoy it because it is a simple and beautiful game that is all about planning ahead and having a little luck on your side.
8/10
