Between Two Cities + Gamer In Training

Monday March 4, 2019 at 12:46pm board games Comments (3) »
 Cover artwork © Stonemaier Games
Cover artwork © Stonemaier Games

Over the weekend, Sheri & I played Between Two Cities with our daughter.  We'd bought the game for her for Christmas - our friend Tony had recommended it as a good age-accessible game - but with everything else going on, we hadn't managed to bring it to the table before now.  Actually, Hannah had even forgotten about it entirely.

Since Sheri & I are both into various tabletop games, we like to encourage that with our kids - especially with Hannah, now that she's getting old enough to really play some of the more interesting games.  I mean, Candyland has its limits.

 

Between Two Cities is a great quick-play game for 3-7 people.  The fact that it supports more than 4 players is an automatic bonus for us, since we frequently play games with larger groups of friends.  It actually has a solo variant as well, if that's your thing.  We played the game through twice in about half an hour or so.  We were only playing with three, but because of the way the game works, I don't imagine that increasing the number of players will greatly affect the play time (I'll let you know if I find out differently). The game has a competitive goal, but it is actually played cooperatively - which is a very interesting dichotomy.

During the three "rounds" of the game, you will be building two different cities: one with the player to your left, and the other with the player to your right.  On each turn, you'll choose a couple of tiles from your hand, and you will to place one in each - then, you and your partners will decide where to place the tiles in your city for best effect.  There are several different types of tiles, and each scores points in a different way; the goal is to create the best cities you can with what you have.  Note that you have to focus on both cities, because your personal score will be equal to whichever of your cities scores the lowest.

 

Hannah loved the game.  At 7, she can't quite keep all of the considerations in her head while placing tiles - but then, neither can I.  She said she really wants to play it again, though she's also really excited to play Stuffed Fables and to do more No Thank You Evil.  She went to bed that night having encountered, for the first time, the "Gamer's Dilemma": So Many Games, So Little Time.

 

~PS

llama says...

I am so very happy to hear that everyone had a good time. When I played it at fwa, I fell in love with it.

Penguinsushi says...

I suppose I should have mentioned in the post that you were the one that recommended it to us - my bad!

llama says...

There it is!!

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