We're still doing remote games. At this point it's more because of moving away from friends than the pandemic, though the idea probably wouldn't have occurred to us without quarantineSZN. After growing tired of Catan and wanting to find other options I talked to my brother. He's much more into games than I am and, after a little bit of thought (this discussion was worthy of serious consideration), he suggested Tiny Towns. We played it shortly afterward and I have to say I agree with his assessment. He's since left me the game and it'll get some use at our house.
In theory it sounds super simple. You're given a 4x4 grid that represents a small town in which you'll plan and build a community. Different buildings are worth different points depending on where they're built or how many there are. Each turn a resource needs to be placed on your grid. Each square can only hold one resource. When the placed resources match the layout requirement of a building you can remove the resource cubes and place the building on one of the squares where the resources laid. The building is a permanent addition to your town and cannot be moved. This is how you develop your 'tiny town.'
A key draw is the customization. There are eight different types of buildings. One is the Cottage, a dwelling (blue), and it's the only building that never changes. Then there are religious structures (orange), food production (red), social halls (green), cultural establishments (yellow), industrial buildings (black) and communal areas (gray). Each of those six building types have four different options that you select from each time you play. It's those seven selected buildings that everyone must build from. In addition, if you want to add a complicating element, there are monuments (pink). Each player receives one monument that only they can build and it can only be built one time. Due to the building options alone you'll likely never play the same game twice, unless you really try to of course.
This game resembles a puzzle, another reason I really like it. It'd be a challenge in itself to plan out from the start what resource you want each turn to perfectly fill up your board with a layout that maximized points. But that's not how it works because you don't have total control over the resources you receive. There are two ways to play. The main rules state that players take turns (going around the table clockwise) being a 'Master Builder' and calling out a resource of their choosing. A variant, which is the only way I've played so far, is to use a deck of 15 resource cards. Five are removed whenever the deck is shuffled to give it some randomness. A card is flipped over two out of every three turns and each player must take and place the resource that's revealed. Every third turn each player can take whatever resource they want, something that allows some relief. Either way you're repeatedly going to be given resources not of your choosing that need to be used. The result is a grid that gets filled up with buildings and resource cubes and is a shrinking space to work with. So if we're going to use a puzzle analogy its more like a puzzle that fights back. You don't know what pieces you're going to have and can only do the best you can while finding out.
The game ends for each player when they run out of space and can no longer take action, i.e. their board is filled up. This may happen for some players sooner than others. In other situations this would be a great annoyance but each play-through doesn't take very long so it's not a big deal. When done you total up your points (a scorecard is provided) and the player with the most points wins. This is all about efficiency. Who is most efficient is always going to be partially determined by execution of a plan and partially by luck.
Tiny Towns rules state that it can be played by one to six players. There are special rules for playing solo, which I did to provide the pictures here, but it also can be done following the Town Hall rules (using the cards to pick resources). The maximum players is likely only determined by the number of pieces and boards provided in the box. If you had multiple versions of the game it'd be an easy one to play with a big group of people all together, admittedly something that won't ever happen. But this is why this game is perfect for remote play, as long as everyone has the game. For the most part people don't need to, or don't care to, see what other players are doing. There's no complicated common board that's hard to see on a computer screen. Everyone will just focus on their own board, I know I have. Select the building options and make sure each person knows what resource needs to be placed each turn. As long as no one is blatantly cheating the game will operate the same whether the players are in one or several locations.
Another positive is the short play time. As I've stated before I'm liking, more and more, games that have simple rules and a shorter time to complete. The quicker to explain, start and finish a game means 1. my wife won't get too sleepy before it's over and 2. we may have a chance to play more than once. Rules for most games can be understood on a single play-through but strategy can't usually be grasped until that first play is over. With this one I'd estimate total time to be only about 30 minutes once everyone understands how to play. It'd be easy to get through it multiple times in a night unless there's some crazy slow deliberation with resource placements. Add a few minutes for reviewing any building switches between games but that's about it.
That's all for today. If you're also interested for a new game to play remotely, it'll be hard to beat this one. I'm looking forward to trying it that way soon.
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