City Building Games Vol I. - Machi Koro and CitiesUP

In these upcoming articles we will take a further look on city building games and how CitiesUP differs and creates a special value for city simulation loving boardgames.

When you start to think about city building board games, you have not that many games which offer a rich and fun enviorement of having the right feeling and look as you expect from a city building game.

Some city building games use cards, some don´t , and some combining the card and token game play.

A very successful and widely appreciated city building game for kids and adults is Machi Koro. MACHI KORO takes about 30 minutes and is playable for 2 - 4 players. Basically Machi Koro is a card drawing and laying game. You, as a new elected Mayor, have to fit the citizens needs and fulfill to build special landmarks. To do so, every player uses two dice to let their buildings perform its effect. The game looks pretty nice and and it is a lot of fun to play this game. It is great for starters and for quick and where-ever-you-are plays.

When you start to lay down your building cards in Machi Koro, you will see your city grow in front of you over the time. Macho Koro does not have the idea to be a SimCity board game. The approach is easy and understandable and a lot of fun.

 

CitiesUP catches up on the idea of having building cards. But in contrast to Machi Koro, CitiesUP´buildings do not rely on a dice to perform their tax outcome. In our city building game CitiesUP, the players have to supply their buildings with resources, like water and electricity, and services, like school or an airport. This makes CitiesUP complex and uprises the actual play time. A CitiesUP round takes usually 45 - 90 minutes. You can play CitiesUP with 2- 4 players. In addition to CitiesUP´building cards and resource tokens, the building cards are attached to building tokens. These building tokens differ in height and width. This leads to the characteristically CitiesUP growing skyline. You see the city taking shape. In contrast to Machi Koro, all players are playing on the same board and city. By placing the attached building tokens, the players can activate the bonus patterns of every building card to raise their tax income and score points.