City Building Games Vol II. - Town Center 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.

Town Center was originally published in 2012 by AoS Team & Ludibay and was created by Alban Viard. The usual play time is 30 minutes and involves 2 - 4 players. The recommend age is 12 + .

 Town Center is really about stacking cubes and building a city skyline. The players built the down town center of a city. Different maps are available for purchase. Town Center is about how your stack these different cubes together. There are many different types of modules (cubes) like flats, shops, offices, generators, lifts ... . To gain income from shops and parking lots these models must be supplied with electricity.After tens rounds the player with the highest city / most victory points wins the game. 

Town Center is a game with tiny cubes, which must be stacked wisely to gain more victory points. Supplying your cubes with electricity is nice element, which makes the game more than a puzzle.

In contrast to Town Center, CitiesUP is not about stacking cubes. All buildings in CitiesUP are ready out of the box. Every single cubes of a building is permanent attached to the others. 

The most striking thing in CitiesUP is the connection betweens the board and the building cards. These building cards are specifically attached to a specific building. The way the players place a building can affect the players income. Because the building cards offer a bonus pattern. These bonus pattern offer specific ways to arrange the building tokens on the city board. Every building in CitiesUP must be supplied with resources and services. In addition to the electricity in Town Center, the players also have to handle the demand of water. Services are demanded by most building as well. A service can be offered by e.g. a school or harbor.

The resources in CitiesUP can be purchased by every player and are attached to the buildings right on the building card.