Little Town Game Review

 Town is a 2-4 player board game by Shun and Aya Taguchi. Since I've played Glenmore, one of my favorite mechanics has been tile activation. I just really like it. The game itself is played over four rounds.

 Everything is fine with the design, it is more than suitable. The picture on the box is good, the buildings are a bit cartoonish. The playing field is two-sided with three types of resources: stone, fish and wood - pre-printed on the map. The box is nice and small, with a great organizer that has enough room for more tiles or additions.

 The game is very simple. Each turn, players will either place a worker on a square on the map, activating the eight squares around it, or build a building. There are twelve buildings to choose from plus five cornfields. Every time you build a house, you get victory points. At the end of the round you need to feed your workers (at which point everyone sighed). This was already seen in Agricola or Tsolkin, but here feeding is not burdensome: only one fish or corn per worker, and this is easily achieved, especially if you are building a field. If you want, you can exchange three coins for a resource of your choice.

 There are several interesting buildings available. Fields produce wheat and stand one tree, and also yield 3 WP. Other buildings give you software or money for resources. The Pawn allows you to trade two resources for two others, while the statue gives you 10 programs. The bar and the well just bring VP, and the bookstore and gold mine produce coins.

 There are four more special buildings: cathedral, residence, castle and watchtower, which give you VP at the end of the round/game depending on the surrounding tiles - for workers that activate buildings, constructed buildings and empty squares. Players need to think carefully about where to place their workers in order to get the resources needed to build the right buildings to get the bonuses. As the game progresses, the tile placement area becomes more and more crowded, so it becomes more and more difficult to use the buildings. And money is also tight. Finding combinations from buildings and pre-printed resources is where the game shines.

 The object of the game is to score as many victory points as possible, and the scoring track is located at the bottom of the playing field. There is an extra token for each player if they score more than 60 points.

COMPONENTS

 The game features cards, cardboard tiles, and wooden dice and tokens, as well as a wooden mallet for the first player, point markers, and a round marker. The course is small which is a bonus for me as I mostly play in pubs with small tables. Bonus cards are also small. The tiles are thick, with rounded corners.

 Preparation is simple. Places for tiles are clearly marked. The number of workers and buildings depends on the number of players. There is variability in the preparation, which is that there are more buildings (29) than are needed for the game (12) and more objective cards. The goals are easily achievable and bring 2-3 points. As such, they don't have much impact. I wish the goals were a little more difficult to achieve.

GAME PROCESS

 The gameplay is smooth and fast. There is active interaction between players because you can use your opponent's buildings by paying them a coin.

 Also, as more buildings are placed, a sense of development appears. Towards the end of the game, you can activate four or five squares on your turn. With only twelve buildings, you compete to build the building you want. By the fourth round, most buildings will usually be built, so you'll be looking for opportunities to activate buildings to score victory points.

DESIGN AND SUBJECT

 The design in this game is suitable. The subject feels weak. There has been some criticism from my band about the definition of the grid lines on the playing field. As with any game with resource cubes, you want to upgrade these cubes to more realistic resources and coins to metal ones. But what I like is that it's a cheap and fast game.

CALCULATION OF POINTS

 This is an entry-level game - a simple game with tile activation, the engine here is also simple. The game lasts from 20 to 30 minutes. It's quick and easy to teach her. But there's still some depth for die-hard gamers.

 The overwhelming thought after the party was that I want more. More bonus cards, more buildings. I want to be able to rebuild! The game includes a promo with four additional buildings.

 Overall a great game that will remain in my collection. Fingers crossed for new buildings or additions.

POSTSCRIPT

 Since I wrote this, my cell has broken down this game a few more times, and it's even better than I first thought. Each batch was radically different depending on the buildings chosen and the places where people built them.

 If you have a bank or other building that generates income, this means that there will be much more interaction in the party as players activate other players' houses.

 If you have a building that makes two fish, then foraging becomes easier and you build more buildings quickly.

 A building that allows you to exchange two goods for two others allows you to build houses more strategically.

 Buildings that give points for empty squares or people around them are always tactically blocked.

 Buildings that generate VP will be used more often unless specific resources (usually food) are rare.

 Every time we play I see different little chains/combinations of buildings. As I said in another post, we played Town with four workers instead of three, which makes the field more crowded. But we don't mind! Blocking each other just adds to the fun and interaction in this game.

 As a result, this small, fast-paced game gives you the opportunity to make great decisions!