Review
Card City XL
Card City XL packs a demanding city-building puzzle into 20–30 minutes. Its premise is simple; learning which scenario suits a particular group takes some proper play.
- Published
- 2017
- Designer
- Alban Viard
- Publisher
- AVStudioGames, LudiCreations
- Players
- 1–4
- Playing time
- 45 min
Viard appears to have an ambitious definition of “mate”. Card City XL lasts 20–30 minutes, yet even the basic game has the brain working overtime after the first five.
The starting point is admirably clean: a shared deck is assembled from a set of cards, adjusted for the chosen mode and player count. Players then draft cards representing residential zones through a modified Rochester draft, using them to assemble their own district.
Card City XL lasts 20–30 minutes, yet even the basic game has the brain working overtime after the first five.
TheTrainSpotter
The interesting decision is placement. How those zones connect governs the district’s growth, but also its less attractive by-products: pollution, crime, and the usual civic rewards for concentrating solely on the next draft. Ten rounds finish the game, though they do not remotely finish with the consequences of your choices.
This is by no means a bad game, and its range of scenarios and modes gives it substantial replayability. It does need repeated plays and a little experimentation before a group finds the scenario that matches its preferred level of urban-planning headache.
It does need repeated plays and a little experimentation before a group finds the scenario that matches its preferred level of urban-planning headache.
TheTrainSpotter
Source: BoardGameGeek
0 comments
Sign in to react or comment.
