We crossed out numbers to try for some mega combos in Super Mega Lucky box, the next game in our A-Z game shelf play-through.
Super Mega Lucky Box
Players: 1-6
Time: 20 Minutes
Designers: Phil Walker-Harding
Artists: Serge Seidlitz
Publisher: Gamewright
Super Mega Lucky Box is a quick-playing flip-and-write game where you are ticking off numbers on cards in a 3×3 grid. The faster you can complete a card, the more points you’ll get. Whoever can chain together the most combos, finish cards the fastest, and collect the most stars and moons, will earn the most points and win.
Game play
Super Mega Lucky Box is set up by first shuffling the Lucky Box cards and placing them near the play area. Then the moon and lightening tokens are placed in a supply nearby. The number cards are shuffled and 9 of them dealt into a deck near the play area and the other 9 placed out of the way until the next round.
Each player takes a score card, a dry erase marker, and 4 lightening tokens. Then each player is dealt 5 Lucky Box cards, they choose 3 to place in front of them and discard the rest. Then play is ready to begin.
The game is played in four rounds, each lasting 9 turns. Each turn, the top card of the number deck is turned over. Then every player can mark the revealed number once on one of the Lucky Box cards in front of them. They can optionally spend lightening tokens to change the number up or down for themselves.
If they finish a row or column (or both), the player immediately takes the reward shown on that row or column if there is one. This can include another number that they mark off anywhere on their cards, lightening tokens that they’ll take, moon tokens they’ll collect for game-end scoring, or a star they mark off on that round of their score sheet.
If they finish a Lucky Box card, they’ll draw 3 new ones from the deck, choose 1 to keep and discard the rest.
After the 9th card of the round is turned over, players record their scores for the round based on how many cards they finished and which round it is (more points earlier in the game). Then the 18 number cards are shuffled together, and another deck of 9 dealt into a pile for the next round.
At the end of the 4th round, players compare the number of moon tokens they have — whoever has the most marks +6 points on their score sheet; whoever has the least marks -6 points. Then players tally up their points from completed cards, stars collected, one point for every two numbers marked off on cards they have left, and points for the moon race. Whoever has the most points wins.
My Thoughts
We picked this up a couple years ago as a filler game that can play a lot of people. I like how streamlined and quick playing the game is. It’s also fun when you can chain together several things on one turn — finishing one column lets you mark a number that finishes another row that completes a column with stars or lightening.
Though, truth be told, I’m not very good at this one. I know there’s a lot of luck, but you also want to pull cards at the beginning that cover all the numbers, if you can — I seem to always keep the wrong cards. Still, it’s so fast that it doesn’t bother me.
Three Quick Questions
How is it as a 2-player game? Super Mega Lucky Box scales well for all player counts. The one concession for the 2-player game is that there isn’t a penalty for the player with the least moons, which would like be too punishing otherwise.
How about the art and component quality? The big, chunky numbers make for fun art, but there isn’t much more to it! The cards are good quality, since you need to write right on them. And so far our dry erase markers have held up!
Will this stay in my collection? Yes, this is a keeper. It’s quick, plays up to 6 — which is great for game nights — fun, and small. What more do you want?