Little Town (board game)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Little Town
Game data
author Shun Taguchi , Aya Taguchi
graphic Sabrina Miramon
publishing company Studio GG ,
IELLO u. a.
Publishing year 2018
Art Strategy game
Teammates 1 to 4
Duration 30 to 60 minutes
Age from 12 years

Awards

Little Town is a board game by the Japanese game authors Shun Taguchi and Aya Taguchi , which was first published in 2017 by the Japanese game publisher Studio GG under the name Little Town Builders . It was published internationally in 2019, and a German version was published by IELLO . The building game is designed for up to four people aged 10 and over and usually lasts around 30 to 60 minutes.

Theme and equipment

The game is a build-up board game in which the players try to get as many victory points as possible with their worker pieces over the course of four rounds. It combines elements of the worker placement game , in which the players' workers use certain fields and block them for other players, with the resource management of the available raw materials, the food and the available money for the construction of their own buildings.

In addition to the game instructions, the game material consists of:

  • a double-sided game board with a meadow on which the buildings are built and a marketplace for the building display,
  • 20 building tiles,
  • 15 destination cards,
  • 60 raw material cubes, 15 each for the various raw materials fish, grain, stone and wood,
  • 24 coins in values ​​1 and 3,
  • 20 worker figures, 5 of them in each of the four player colors,
  • 28 worker figures, 7 of them in each of the four player colors,
  • 4 victory point indicators in the four player colors,
  • 4 60s, and
  • a game aid with the descriptions of the building tiles and the short rules.

Style of play

Game preparation

To prepare for the game, the game board is placed in the middle of the table with any side facing up. The five grain tiles are placed on the market as a pile, the remaining building tiles are shuffled and 12 of these are randomly placed on the corresponding spaces on the market. All raw material dice, all coins and the 60 tiles are placed next to the game board as an open supply. The lap marker is placed on the space for the first lap.

Each player chooses a player color and, depending on the number of players, receives pieces and houses of this color, which he places in front of him. In addition, each player receives a victory point marker, which is placed on the 0 space of the victory point track, as well as a starting capital of three 1 coins. The target cards are shuffled and dealt face down to the other players according to the number of players. Finally, a starting player is determined who receives the starting player marker.

Game flow

Starting with the starting player, the other players play a total of four rounds in clockwise order, in which the players can use the workers available to them. The active player can take one of two possible actions: collect and activate or erect a building. A worker is required for each of these actions.

If a player wants to collect raw materials or activate structures on the board, he must place an unused worker on one of the empty meadow spaces. Neither another worker nor a building or a resource field may be on the field. By placing them, the player can now activate all eight horizontally, vertically or diagonally adjacent fields one after the other:

  1. If it is a resource field, i.e. a lake, forest or mountain field, the player receives a corresponding resource die (fish, wood or stone) for each resource field
  2. If there is a building in the vicinity of the figure, it may be activated according to its function. A player can get raw materials, grain, money or victory points or exchange raw materials according to the information on the tile. If it is a building of your own (with a corresponding building), activation is free of charge; in the case of an unfamiliar building, the active player pays a coin to the owner to activate it.

The player can collect the raw materials and activations in any order and can also use the raw materials they have just received to exchange them.

Alternatively, a player can build a structure. To do this, he places his worker on the construction site, on which any number of workers can stand. Then he chooses a building tile from the market and pays the indicated costs in the form of raw materials and coins. He then places the building tile on any meadow space and places one of his buildings on it. Your own victory point marker is then advanced by the number of victory points indicated on the tile.

In addition to the regular actions, a player may at any time fulfill one of the objective cards distributed at the beginning of the game and receive the reward specified for this or exchange 3 coins for any resource die.

A round ends when all players have placed their worker figures and carried out all possible actions accordingly. At the end of the round, some special buildings, such as the cathedral and the mansion, are activated and their owners receive the bonuses activated. Then each player must discard one food cube (grain or fish) for each of his workers or lose three victory points for each worker he cannot feed. Then each player takes his workers back from the playing field, the round marker is advanced one space and the starting player marker is passed clockwise to the next player. That player starts the next round.

The game ends after four rounds, when all actions and activities at the end of the round (activating special buildings, feeding the workers) have been carried out. Then each player receives the victory points from special buildings such as the castle and the watchtower as well as one victory point for every three coins they own. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins the game; if there is a tie, the victory is shared.

Development and reception

The game Little Town was developed by the Japanese game authors Shun Taguchi and Aya Taguchi and was first published in 2017 by the Japanese game publisher Studio GG under the name Little Town Builders . It was published internationally in 2019, including a French, an English and a German version by the French publisher IELLO . Further versions were published in Korean (Korea Boardgames), in Chinese (GoKids) and in Spanish (Tcg Factory).

The game critic Wieland Herold rated the game in his blog "With 80 games through the year" with the category "Gladly again tomorrow" and wrote:

“Overall, LITTLE TOWN is a very elegant, simple worker placement game that is an almost exemplary introduction to this genre. The easy access makes it a family game that leads to some depth of game and tactical considerations over the 12 actions. (...) All in all, the cooperation between the Japanese authors and iello resulted in a coherent overall product. "

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Game Instructions Little Town , IELLO 2019
  2. ↑ a b Versions of Little Town in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on January 26, 2020.
  3. ↑ Little Town in the blog "With 80 Games Through the Year," October 20, 2019; accessed on January 26, 2020.

Web links