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The German bears are wandering through the garden, picking mushrooms for your whatnot cabinet. Wait. What? Ha ha, not really! But the designers of Barenpark and Floriferous, Delicious, Herbaceous, and other beautiful puzzly games have come together to create CITIES published by Devir Games. Welcome to the world as envisioned by Phil Walker Harding and Dr Steve Finn!
My Zatu chum has reviewed the game generally (here), but I have been allowed to pop a spotlight on the two player experience. And as my husband and I play mainly at 2P, we were very excited to luxuriate in our favourite player count!
I should say that I have a sweet spot for Dr Finn’s games – each one I have played has been a hit for me in terms of solo gaming. As a #greedygamer, I indulge in fast playing, pretty solos, and honestly, I haven’t been steered wrong by him. Phil Walker Harding is also a sure fire thing for fun, family games. So when the twain came together, I was expecting light but fun puzzly things, and I have not been disappointed.
I won’t go into the main rules and game play, but I will say where the 2 player experience differs. Essentially, you get to do twice as much – placing 8 meeples each round instead of 4 (with a maximum of two per row). And you can play a longer game by making a larger city grid (5 x 3 instead of the standard 3 x 3). Aside from that, everything else is identical.
Final Thoughts!
We really enjoy Cities at two player. It’s not a heavy game or a long game. It’s light, it’s fun, and it does a lot of things which we like. There’s set collection, pattern matching, variable scoring objectives, and worker placement. It’s super accessible – we were playing after a quick flick through the rules – and it absolutely does not outstay its welcome on the table. If anything it goes too fast! And so the ability to extend your city in two player mode is very welcome indeed! The designers behind it are known for their easy to learn, puzzly offerings and this falls into that category like a hand in a glove.
With multiple meeples going down in a given round, you’ll sometimes know what is left for you to take by the time your turn comes. Well, that is if your opponent has hit the same row twice and left you the only two open spots. Although you may be thinking there’s no good stuff left, there’s a big advantage to their hastiness! This means that you can leave those rows and focus on cherry picking from the others. After all, you know what you are going to get from the ones they have already targeted. And unless you need to pick one of them to secure a city bonus which is worth more the faster you can achieve it, you can go for the best of the untouched rows to boost your chances of victory. There’s also always the option of tailoring your picks to hate draft something away from your opponent!
Having different cities requiring unique public objectives, as well as the myriad randomly drawn scoring objectives, means each game has a different drive. Whilst the actions remain the same, the outcomes and priorities will always change, and that’s a familiar freshness that suits us. We don’t have time to deep dive into heavy games most of the time. So, picking this off the shelf is easy and works well when we wants some puzzly head to head gaming.
It's easy to grab too as the box is bright blue and super eye-catching. Even the whimsical font used makes me smile! And if I had a crystal ball that worked, I’d bet good money on seeing expansions in the future – even more cities adding even more variety!
Having also played at 3 and 4 player, Cities definitely works at every player count. I’m super sad there isn’t a solo mode, but I guess we can’t have everything! It just means that I’ll need my partner in crime to play this one. And that’s no bother as he is always up for a game of Cities!
Likes
Superb component quality
Fast playing but extended for 2P
Mixture of open and closed information
Light with fun decisions
Dislikes
No solo mode.
Scores
Component Quality: 4
Complexity: 2
Replayability: 5
Player Interaction: 3
Overall: 80%
