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Although I consider myself to have been a gamer for a long, long time, I've only relatively recently returned to the analogue fold. This comes after being seduced away by the bright lights and big noises of the digital domain for several years. In the short time since my return, I have made two discoveries: I love small box games and I love deck-builders.
Shards of Infinity has been my go-to game of this ilk for a while (I know, all you Star Realmers out there, I know). However, with one expansion in the box and another on the way, that small box is getting mighty crowded. Therefore, it is with deep joy that I can bring another small but perfectly formed deck-builder to the party (this is the reason I don’t get invited to parties anymore). Design Town, TGFKA Flip City! (A heavy-handed reference for all you Prince fans out there.)
And I suck at it! Yay!
Little Box, Big Game
Design Town, playable for one to four, comes in a box that is just a bit bigger than an ‘Epic Tiny’ game. Inside you'll find 120 cards (plus four rules cards). This includes 24 cards from the expansion, Design Town: Reuse. Each card is double-sided and comes in seven varieties:
- Residential/Apartment.
- Flea Market/Trash Can.
- Convenience Store/Supermarket.
- Construction Yard/Recycling Centre.
- Hospital/Church.
- Factory/Power Plant.
- Central Park/Train Station.
Everyone starts with a deck of four Residential cards, one Apartment (a flipped Residential – that’s why it’s also known as Flip City) and one of each of the other cards on their starting side. The aim of the game is to play eight victory points in your turn or 18 cards including a Convenience Store. At first, this seems like a pretty daunting prospect, but things escalate pretty quickly.
How to Play? Pretty Flipping Simple!
Turns are split into two phases: Drawing and building. In the draw phase, you draw cards from the top of your deck until you decide to stop, or you have three frowny faces on the cards in front of you. Having three faces is bad as it means you’ve upset your citizens and no building for you. “But why would you choose to have three frowny faces?” You ask. Because some cards don’t give a choice but to draw them… and just one more card will give that one coin you are short of to build that thing – it’s push your luck time people (and my luck is… questionable).
If you make it through the draw phase and the people aren’t revolting, you get a chance to build. In this phase you can choose to do one of three things.
- Buy new cards.
- Upgrade cards in your discard pile.
- Develop cards.
As in regular deck-builders, purchased cards go to your discard pile to come around another time. If you choose to upgrade a card, you can flip a card in you discard pile to the upgraded side (there are some cards that, once upgraded, can later be downgraded in your discard pile to give you extra coinage, extra frowny faces or extra victory points) to give your deck some extra oomph later. If you have the money, you might be able to do both and develop a card. This means you can buy a card and flip it at the same time – double whammy. Yeah. Escalation.
As the game goes on, upgraded cards allow you to have more frowns, give you extra buys and discard your opponents’ cards. You can even shift other low grade cards from your discard pile into other players' piles, until eventually… someone gets a lucky break and maxes out… and it always seems to come as a bit of a surprise. Especially if it’s you (it’s never me).
Final Thoughts on Design Town
What I really love about this game (designed by Chih-Fan Chen) is its speed and the whole ‘just one more card and I’ll… BUST’ element of it. Having the deck manipulation effects also make this a surprisingly interactive deck-builder. There is so much potential for combos and broken combos to give the game real depth for such a smallish range of cards.
The flip element is a clever way to double the potential of your cards without doubling the size. However, it can make shuffling a bit tricky, especially when you can’t look at the cards when you’re shuffling them. The artwork is simple but distinctive and clear and, though the text is a bit small, once you’ve got the idea of special card effects, you’re away.
It might be described as a ‘filler’ game because of its size, but it’s more like Travel Dominion (if it existed) in that, for those new to deck-builders, you can see what you’re getting. You could also (unfairly) compare it to that other great town building game, Machi Koro, but apart from being able to buy cards to build towns, there is otherwise not much in common.
If I could make one critique about Design Town, it’s that there could be a few more cards. Although, you do get a surprising large amount of play from a small set of cards. The other critique is that I still keep losing, but my lucks got change one day, right?
