Rio Grande | £19.99 | Bidding | 2-6 players | 60 minutes | Age: 13+ | riograndegames.com
If the original Power Grid is a slowburning coal fire, Power Grid: The Card Game hopes to be an electric heater, providing almost the same level of warmth and enjoyment with a fraction of the time and cost required.
Power Grid: TCG’s gameplay operates essentially as a condensed variation of Power Grid, stripping away the need to purchase cities and manage their network on a central map board. Instead, the focus is placed on the bidding and auction mechanics of the first two rounds, as players compete to acquire power plants, purchase the resources necessary to generate electricity and earn the ingame elektro currency. As such, play time is effectively halved, dropping from an estimated two hours for a match to under 60 minutes.