IвЂ™d happily recommend this game to everyone. I get excited to play Suburbia after two years not just because itвЂ™s fun, or because I can watch new friends marvel at its puzzle for the first time, but because I know itвЂ™ll still be new and exciting for me. There are so very many tiles in the game, from drive-thrus and casinos to homeowners associations and lakes and everything in between, and with this come a great many possible ways to build. Vitally, every game of Suburbia is different. In the space of two hours youвЂ™ve had a dream, achieved some small part of it and burned it all down. In the gameвЂ™s second act youвЂ™re alternately groaning at your friendsвЂ™ ludicrous combos and giggling at their failings, before finally approaching the third act where everyoneвЂ™s suburb starts sputtering and failing like an ancient car due to the pressure of your growing population. Quickly, youвЂ™re all lamenting the unique problems that youвЂ™ve created, whether thatвЂ™s a lack of money, space, a certain tile type and so on. To begin with everybody assumes control of a blank slate, and itвЂ™s initially interesting to see the radically different directions (literally and metaphorically) you all grow in. Ultimately, a game of Suburbia is long enough that everyone will have their fair share of successes and disasters, and itвЂ™s this arc that makes it such a wonderful puzzle to share. Or perhaps theyвЂ™ll elicit the more passive-aggressive вЂњJust wondering, why did you buy that?вЂќ through clenched teeth. About three or four times in any game of Suburbia, all players will be lost in thought, someone will silently purchase a tile they didnвЂ™t really want and another player will scream вЂњNO!вЂќ as their plans for a utopia shatter like a china plate on the gameвЂ™s endless concrete. reward, constantly weighing up how much youвЂ™re willing to pay for a tile vs. On your turn you can buy one of the tiles and socket it onto your growing suburb, but when you buy something the rest of the tiles in the shop all slide down both physically and in price, before you finally add a new tile is the empty space at the top.

Six tiles are always available for all players to buy in a вЂњconveyor beltвЂќ-style central shop. A Wildlife Reserve will have people flocking to your suburb, just so long as you never build in that direction again. The Office of Bureaucracy lowers your reputation, but can be ludicrously profitable if you manage to amass all lots of other black, bleak Government tiles. That kind of thing.Д«ut every single tile in Suburbia is different, and while an unfortunate placement of one will often make them as worthless as the cardstock theyвЂ™re printed on, correct placement can bring incredible power. Parks cost money, but increase your reputation every time you put a home or office next to them. Loosely, yellow industrial tiles massively increase income, but decrease your suburbвЂ™s reputation (the rate at which you gain population) when next to green residential tiles. Everybody start Suburbia with just three hexagonal tiles: One suburb, one park, and one factory. How you achieve any of this is equally simple. ItвЂ™s urban planning meets the immortal game of chicken. Grow too slowly and youвЂ™ll be unable to catch your friends when the game ends. Grow too quickly and youвЂ™ll find yourself tangled up in red tape, with dwindling funds and a pathetic trickle of new residents.

The board showing everyoneвЂ™s population is covered in tiny red speedbumps, and passing one of these reduces your income and your suburbвЂ™s desirability. Let me outline the rules: Players in Suburbia are racing to have the most people in their suburb when the game ends, but this is a delicate balancing act. But itвЂ™s these comedic undertones that make me love it. ItвЂ™s easy to learn, impossible to master and endlessly surprising. To maximise the profit from his rare Crystal Caverns my friend had single-mindedly surrounded them with a druidic circle of affordable housing.

Or stranger still вЂ“ the last game I played saw my friend developing an idyll that ran very close to вЂњsecret cultвЂќ. A вЂњcommercial districtвЂќ consisting of an office building, a stationary shop and a graveyard. A school tucked between a slaughterhouse and a cliff edge.

King of suburbia game