Tiny Towns

Welcome to Tiny Towns! A game where you, yes you, get to build the tiniest of towns along a 4 x 4 grid. The game plays up to six players and runs about 45 minutes.

Every turn, the active player will call out a resource. Then every player must place a copy of that resource on their grid. Whenever a player has completed a pattern of resources in their grid that matches one of the available buildings, they may remove those resources and place the corresponding building in one of the spaces previously occupied by a resource. To note, the pattern can be rotated, flipped, and mirrored without issue. The seven common buildings available to build are wells, cottages, taverns, theater, farms, factories, and chapels. Each player will also have a unique monument building that only they can build.

Each building either has a use during the game play or for scoring victory points. Factories are really useful during game play, since they let you use any other resource when another player calls a particular resource type. This comes in handy if an opponent seems to be focusing on one building type that you are not interested in. Other buildings include farms that feed up to four cottages, cottages that score 3 victory points if they are fed, chapels that score a victory point per fed cottage, wells that score one point for each adjacent cottage, taverns that score progressively higher points based on the number of taverns on your grid, and finally, theaters that provide a victory point for every other unique building in the same row and column as the theater.

If, at any point in the game, a player can no longer place resources, they are out of the game and tally up their score. The rest of the players will continue playing. This does mean that if you are the last player you can build however you like. This leads to a unique game where you need to carefully manage where you place your resources to hopefully convert as many blocks into buildings as possible while also preventing yourself from being locked out of the game from opponents forcing you to place irrelevant resources.

The variability and replay value comes in two forms. Firstly, the unique monuments players could be dealt and, secondly, each of the main buildings come with multiple building patterns.

This game had an easy flow and offers a decently challenging puzzle. You have to pay attention to everyone’s board states when you place resources. It can be very easy to create dead spaces if you don’t think far enough ahead. I would call this game heavy-casual; it doesn’t take long to set up or play. But having to plan far enough ahead to not block yourself off takes some critical thinking.

About Author

Chris Galecki

Hello, dear reader!

I’ve been a fan of games since I was a child and, somewhere along the way, I picked up an interest in the design of games: how the mechanics are interacting and presented to the players. Sometime since then, I managed to acquire some opinions, wretched things that they are, and I can do naught but share them with all of you!

In my reviews, I want to give you a sense of what the game plays like. That way you can make a decision for yourself on whether this would be a game that you would like. I will also call out if I find something interesting and clever or whether it falls flat, of course.

Happy reading! -Chris Galecki

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