Saloon Tycoon

I bought it almost blind, simply because I liked the title — conscious consumer, lol. Saloon Tycoon ultimately turned out to be a small revelation: a pleasant, light hour-long game, ideal as an appetizer, with a theme that looks great spread across the table.

Each player tries to build the best saloon, constructing buildings and making sure they are supplied. Its foundation is simple and turns take nanoseconds, which keeps the game moving at an excellent pace: before you know it, you are already onto your next build or next move.

Despite being light, it has depth, strategy, surprises, and interaction. The multiple objectives and cards give you reasons to adapt and watch what everyone else is building, without weighing down the flow. In the first game everyone is a little lost in space, but the more you come back to it, the more it seems to improve.

The 3-D look is genuinely eye-catching, and it does a lot to sell both the theme and the image of your little saloon. Together with the objectives and cards, it also provides the necessary replayability so that it does not remain merely a cute first-play game.

The only truly worrying thing was that the Ancient Old One won comfortably, setting up a trio with the senator above the printing house. Highly disturbing. Once the warm-up was over, things got serious — and I am in for another round.