Can you become a master builder? A look at Tiny Towns

“You are the mayor of a tiny town in the forest, where the smaller creatures of the woods have created a civilization hidden away from predators. This new land is small and the resources are scarce - you take what you can get and never say no to building materials. Cleverly plan and construct a thriving town, and don’t let it fill up with wasted resources!”

This week, my group played Tiny Towns. Tiny Towns is a city--building family game created by Peter McPherson and published by AEG games. It is designed for 1 to 6 players, ages 14 and up. Each game takes between 45 minutes and an hour.

Gameplay Mechanics

In Tiny Towns, each player receives a 4x4 grid, called the town, and two monument cards. They will look at both monument cards and keep one, making sure to keep it hidden from the other players. These cards give each player a secret objective that will help them score more points once it has been built. 

Then, one of each type of building card is placed in the center of the table: Farm, Cottage, Chapel, Tavern, Well, Theater, and Factory. Each type of card requires certain resources to place in your town, (glass, wood, wheat, brick, or stone) listed in a specific orientation. Players will spend their turns collecting and placing these resources in order to place the different types of buildings in their towns. 

Each building will provide a different way to earn victory points. For example, you need Farms to power Cottages, and certain other buildings will give you victory points based on how many other cottages you have or where they are located.

Players will take turns calling out which resource everyone will use for that turn. Then, each player gets one of the called resource, i.e. glass, and places it somewhere in their town. This mechanic keeps everyone engaged throughout the entire game, and makes it possible to thwart your opponents when they are low on space in their village.

Once a player has all of the resources needed, placed in the correct orientation, they are able to grab one of the buildings from the center of the table and place it in their town, in any space that was occupied by one of the resources. Then, the resources are returned to the general supply.

Game End

When a player’s town is full and they cannot (or decide not to) place any other resources, they are out of the game and can begin scoring. The rest of the players continue on calling and placing resources as normal. When all players’ towns are completed, the game ends. All remaining resource cubes are removed from towns, and each empty square is worth -1 victory point. 

Players add their victory points for each building, then subtract any penalties to calculate their final score. The player with the highest victory point total wins!

Components

Tiny Towns, despite the large box size, doesn’t have a huge amount of game components. The buildings each have their own bags, and the resources share a bag. They are all wooden and feel high quality. The cards are also of good quality, and you don’t have to touch them at all during the game, which means they’re unlikely to get damaged. 

The box insert is well designed and holds everything nicely, so you’ll never open a box where all the pieces have gotten mixed together. I store my games vertically, so this is always a nice bonus. 

My Thoughts

Tiny Towns is very easy to learn, but there can be a lot of different factors involved in the placement of resources, as you have to plan out your buildings so you don’t get stuck with a lot of extra resources at the end of the game. It is very easy to back yourself into a corner with placement, especially if one player is intentionally calling out resources that thwart your plans. 

Monuments can sometimes turn the tide of the entire game, by awarding a large amount of points, or sometimes giving you free buildings that  you can place anywhere in your town. Because of this, everyone should stay alert to what their opponents are doing, and not feel assured that they will win, even if they have a large lead.  

In conclusion

Tiny Towns is an excellent choice for novice and experienced board gamers alike. It’s incredibly easy to pick up, and can involve a fairly large amount of strategy. It is also very easy and quick to set up and take down, so it doesn’t feel daunting when you just want a quick game.