I really love a good board game. One of my favorites right now is Mariposas by Elizabeth Hargrave (aka The Board Game Genius).
Mariposas is based on the generational migration of monarch butterflies from Michoacán to Canada and back. There are only three seasons and each season has a limited number of turns. It’s fast, fun, gorgeous and challenging!
There aren’t a ton of pieces either, which makes the game easy to set up and start playing. The goal is simple: collect food from flowers so you can get fourth generation butterflies back to their wintering place in Michoacán. You earn points for a variety of other achievements, like collecting one of each flower type, or having one butterfly on each of three color hexagons at the end of a season.
The flowers are real flowers, too. The board game doesn’t include the names, but thanks to BoardGameGeek we know they are:
Big cities that have way stations offer special bonuses. Waystations are real – they are intentionally created to help monarchs on their migration.
My husband and I willingly play several games in a row. He’s proposed a variation where we flip over the waystation tokens at the start of the game so we know what’s hidden there. I’m all for trying it out. Let me know if you have this game and if you try the waystation reveal variation!
