Game summary:
A game for 1 – 6 players
Play time around 45 – 60 Min
Designer: Peter McPherson
Artist: Gong Studios
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group & White Goblin Games
Unboxing
The box contains the following components:
Rulebook
6 Player boards
25 Building cards
15 Monument cards
15 Resource cards
1 scorepad
126 Wooden buildings
1 Wooden master builder hammer
90 Wooden resource cubes
An example of a monument card with the monument and a player board.
An example of a player board with some buildings
Let’s get it to the table
Welcome to Tiny Towns, you are the mayor of a tiny town in the forest, where the smaller creatures of the woods have created a civilization hidden away from predators. This new land is small and the resources are scarce, you have to take what you can get and never say no to building materials. Plan wisely and construct a your town but don’t let it fill up with wasted space.
First we’re going to setup the player boards and the table;
Let’s get the table ready.
Give each player a player board.
Place the Cottage card, that’s the card with the green house symbol on the back, face-up in the center of the table.
Shuffle the different tiles with the buildings and draw 1 card from each pile and the them face-up next to the Cottage card. The rest of the building cards can be placed back into the box.
Place the wooden resource cubes and buildings in a general supply where all players can reach them.
The starting player, is the player that recently constructed something. That player receives the Master builder hammer.
Now shuffle the monument cards and deal each player 2 cards. Every player chooses 1 card and keeps that one secret from the rest of the players. All players also receive 1 wooden monument and place it next to their player board.
Now we are ready to play!
But first the round overview;
1. The player with the Master builder names a resource (or color);
2. All players take a cube of that resource and place it into an empty square in their town
3. Players may construct any building for which they have the matching resources in the correct shape
4. Once all the players have placed their resources and maybe constructed a building, a new round will begin. The player with the Master builder hammer passes this one to the next player.
Some construction rules;
Remove the resources that are needed to construct a building, and place them into the general supply. On the different cards you see what kind of resources you need to construct a building, the building can be placed into your town in any way.
Take the matching building from the supply and place it in 1 of the squares that was occupied by the resources that you just removed.
– A resource can only be used to construct 1 building;
– Buildings do not have to be constructed as soon as its resources are in place, you can wait as many rounds as you want;
– You can construct as many buildings as you want, just as long as you have the resources in your town;
– Once placed, a building can never be moved to another square;
Completing your town;
You town is completed when it’s filled with resources and you cannot construct any buildings or when you choose to not place any resources into your town. Your turn is over and you have to wait till all the other players are also ready.
A few examples of some monument cards
A few cards that you can use for the solo play
End of the game
When all player’s towns are completed the game ends immediately.
Remove all the remaining cubes from the towns, each of the empty spaces is worth -1 VP.
Then the players add the VP for each of the building in their town and subtract any penalties to calculate their final score. The player with the most VP is the best mayor and wins this game of Tiny Towns.
The scorepad, you can use this one to count the scores for each players
Final Conclusion & rating:
Weight: 2.08 / 5
Replayability: 7
My rating: 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲
Quality of the components
The game looks very nice and simple. The artwork is not very special but together it makes a nice whole. The other game components such as the houses are well designed and when they are together, it looks nice.
The explanation in the rules is very simple, so you can quickly start playing. The only downside I think is the insertion, because you have so many different resources and houses, you’re quite busy to put everything right on the table.
Overall impression of the game
I have heard different stories about Tiny Towns, some find it a fun game and others don’t like it at all. I must say that I understand both sides, Tiny Towns is namely a very light game. This makes it less challenging for the experienced players but also there is not much interaction with the other players. You can bother each other a little bit by mentioning resources that are of no use to another player but that is all.
Personally, I find it a nice game to put on the table, because you don’t have to think much and you can score points in different ways makes this a game I like to play in between. The explanation is very simple and that makes it for new or beginning players very easy to put this game on the table. You can score points in various ways, by combining houses and wells, here you can always alternate with cards that come on the table. Building a monument can also give you extra points, some of these buildings are very difficult to build, so sometimes you will have to build them very early in the game, otherwise you will not have enough space.
The only disadvantage of Tiny Towns is that everything is in separate bags and therefore it takes a while to set up the game. Fortunately, there are good solutions to this problem, such as the Folded Space insert (review will follow later this week). But we also skip some buildings because we just don’t like them, but that’s a house rule, if you do like them I would definitely use them!
I want to thank AEG games for this review copy, my opinion is not been affected by this.
