1902 Méliès is set in the year 1902, when film pioneer Georges Méliès created his legendary movie A Trip to the Moon – one of the first science‑fiction films in history. Players take on the roles of his assistants, working in the Montreuil studio and helping with the entire filmmaking process: preparing the script, building sets, creating special effects, costuming actors, filming scenes, and even hand‑painting the photograms. The game is designed as a tribute to early cinema and Méliès’s creativity.
The core of the game is a worker‑placement system featuring an interesting bumping mechanism, where other players can push your assistant out of a space, giving you additional actions. Players aim to efficiently manage the full production process:
- acquiring new scenes to film
- gathering materials for special effects
- preparing sets via the rondel mechanism
- positioning and flipping actor tokens on the 3×3 stage
- filming scenes according to card requirements
- editing and hand‑painting photograms
All of this earns points, with the most important factor being careful planning during filming and polished post‑production.
1902 Méliès is a magical blend of historical cinematic charm and original strategic gameplay. 🎞️
