West Story: A Town Building Game

I spotted West Story: A Town Building Game completely by chance on the shelves at No Label X. Its title initially made me think it might be some kind of successor to Town Builder: Coveorden, a game I remember leaving me with a fairly good impression. In the end, they have nothing to do with one another: neither in gameplay nor in overall philosophy. That is not necessarily a bad thing — it is simply worth not coming to the table with that expectation.

At its core, it is a fairly tight tableau-building game. You gradually build your personal tableau and try to make the most of what it offers, while the game relies on a dice mechanism that reminded me of Space Base. These are the kinds of systems that always intrigue me, because dice provide a clear framework for decisions without making the experience entirely automatic.

The mechanisms hold up comfortably, and the development of the tableau is interesting. Player interaction seems to come mainly through the shared pace and the choices opened up around the dice, rather than through any particularly aggressive or confrontational approach. But this is where it starts to lose me a little: the scoring and the tempo at which the game develops did not come together for me as well as I would have liked.

The rulebook also tired me out somewhat, which does not help a game that otherwise has a fairly clear mechanical foundation. Overall, it was an average experience for me: I was not disappointed, I did not feel that anything broke along the way, but I also did not leave the game especially excited. Still, I would play it again — the dice mechanism retains enough charm to pull me back to the table.