Could be worse, could be Man City
MY CITY
Designer: Reiner Knizia | Publisher: Kosmos
There’s no shortage of family-friendly games about making cities, but a few things make My City stand out. It’s by Reiner Knizia, the most prolific designer of all time. It’s up for the Spiel des Jahres, which as my colleague James will remind you, is the most important games award in the world. And it’s a legacy game – the modern innovation where the game is physically changed after each play, making each set unique
My City isn’t the first family-friendly legacy title, but it’s one of the most ambitious. A complete campaign will last 24 half-hour games which is, as my youngest child exclaimed with wide eyes, seventy-two hours of play. (It’s not seventy-two hours, but it’s still a commitment that a lot of families, distracted by homework and Roblox, will never get to the end of.
It’s a tile-layer. Specifically it’s a tilelayer with the sort of post-Tetris tiles that may remind you of Patchwork and other games by Uwe Rosenberg, which is ironic because Rosenberg is also on the shortlist for the Spiel des Jahres this year. Funny old world. But Knizia’s take on the aesthetic is distinctively different.
Everyone has their own identical board and tile-set. Each turn someone flips a card showing one of the tiles, and everyone takes that tile and places it somewhere on their board, subject to some fairly simple rules: new tiles must touch an old tile, no crossing rivers, and so on. Of course, this being a legacy game those rules change and develop as things go on.
Once all the tiles are down you score: plus points for every tree you didn’t cover, minus points for leaving rocks and grass uncovered, and negatives for tiles you couldn’t place. Points let you colour in progress symbols on your board, but also affect who gets to put new stickers on their board. The learning curve is gentle but the game is never less than pleasantly challenging. It’s a multiplayer solo, so nothing you do will affect the other players, but that doesn’t detract from what’s basically a social puzzle.
Each of the eight sealed envelopes in the box covers one chapter of three play-throughs, adding new rules and sometimes components. I’m deliberately not going to describe what’s in the envelopes because the surprise is half the fun, but chapter titles like ‘The Flood’, ‘The Gold Rush’ and ‘The Railroad’ give some good clues. The variety keeps the game fresh, but without moving far from the original gameplay.
As an introduction to legacy games, My City is pitched just right. The core mechanic is simple but robust, the half-hour games pass quickly, and everything has the level of polish you’d expect from one of the world’s great designers. But whether this is a game for you comes down to two core questions: will you enjoy this kind of abstract puzzle enough to play it, with variations, twenty-four times, rebuilding the same city from scratch over and over again; and does your family or group share your enthusiasm?
Clever game? Absolutely. Great game? Possibly. Great legacy game? That depends on you.
MARTIN ADAMS
WE SAY
It’s great to play, but asking any family to play a game 24 times may be a tough ask. Perhaps if we have to go back into lockdown….
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED TINY TOWNS…
It’s a good year for family-friendly town-builders, and Tiny Towns is different enough in style to make the transition between the two games a pleasant one.