Build a New Small City, the Best Planet, the Greatest Roman City, and an Otherworldly Theme Park

• Alban Viard's Small City is one of many games that I discovered when it was out of print, yet I had to have it. I ended up paying a premium to get it, knowing full well that a new edition was coming. What can I say, the scarcity bias has my number and calls often.

Alas, AVStudioGames launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter (KS link) in March 2022 for the long-awaited Small City: Deluxe Edition, a spiffy new version of Viard's 1–4 player city-building gem. Small City: Deluxe Edition features a revised rulebook and solo mode, new variants, and fresh new artwork from the esteemed Kwanchai Moriya.

If you're not already familiar with Small City, here's a description of how it works from the publisher:

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You are the mayor of one borough of Small City, and you have eight turns to secure enough votes to be re-elected. To do this, you have to attract more citizens, encourage the growth of residential areas for them to live in, and aid the expansion of both the commercial and industrial sectors – though the latter sector also brings pollution with it, and you need to deal with that, too, as high pollution levels will have a negative effect on your score at the end of the game.

If you build suitable infrastructure, your citizens will undoubtedly vote for your re-election, but beware of false promises! Votes can be earned over the course of the game by placing citizens in the residential spaces, by erecting cultural buildings, by keeping commercial buildings in suitable areas, and also by making good on the promises that you made to the citizens at the beginning of the game.

The player with the most votes (i.e., victory points) after eight turns wins.

As part of the Small City: Deluxe Edition, you can also pick up its first expansion, Small City Deluxe: Winter Expansion. The Winter expansion features eight modules for playing a Winter season version of Small City: Deluxe Edition, with new player and city boards, new building tiles, new action cards, and more.

• Do you have what it takes to build the greatest Roman city? Find out with Magna Roma, a new competitive, tile placement, city-building game for 1-4 players that plays in 30-90 minutes, from designer Matteo De Nardis and Archona Games. Magna Roma was successfully funded on Kickstarter (KS link)in April 2021 and is now available for pre-order.

Here's the gist of it from the publisher:

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You are summoned by the Roman emperor to hear about his great plans for expansion. He wants you to found the next great Roman city and bring glory to the Roman Empire!

Carefully plan your city and efficiently connect neighborhoods to gain valuable resources! Spend coins and employ population to build magnificent monuments! Use legions to conquer distant lands for the Emperor! Produce valuable luxuries to use for scoring points! Gain the Will of the Gods and use it to empower your city! Glory is within your grasp!

Build the greatest Roman cities and bring glory to Rome in this tile-placement, city builder board game for 1-4 players!

In Magna Roma, the objective is to make the most points at the end of the game by building your city efficiently! To do so, players take turns to place city tiles in their city. A newly placed tile must be connected to at least one of the previously placed tiles. When a player places a tile, the connection with the adjacent tiles will result in producing one or more resources for the player. For example, connecting two half-circles found on the tiles produces a coin, a rectangle and triangle produce population, a rectangle and half-circle produce a legion etc. What's more, if the connected shapes are of the same color, the game rewards the player with double the resources.

With these resources, players will be able to play the other actions in the game, such as: build different monuments in your city, gain a Luxury Good, gain the Gods' Favor tiles, conquer new provinces for the Emperor all serving the same goal - to gain the most points at the end of the game and build the greatest Roman city that ever existed!

• Planet Unknown is a unique, city-building game with an interstellar flair from designers Ryan Lambert and Adam Rehberg, and Adam's Apple Games, a publishing company who strives to create games with unique components and new play patterns combined with a rich theme.

In Planet Unknown, 1-6 players compete to build and develop the best planet by placing polyomino resources tiles. Planet Unknown plays in 60-80 minutes and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in April 2020 (KS link). Here's an overview of how it works from the publisher:

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Our planet has run out of resources, and we are forced to move. We have discovered a series of planets and sent our rovers to test their environment with the hope of colonization. Our rovers have confirmed 1-6 viable colonization options. Planet Unknown is a competitive game for 1-6 players where players build and develop the best planet to win!

Photo from GAMA Expo 2022 courtesy of W. Eric Martin

Each player has a goal of developing the best planet in Planet Unknown. Each round, each player will place one dual resourced tile on their planet, which is a polyomino shape. Each resource represents the infrastructure needed to support life on the planet. Every tile placement is important to cover your planet efficiently and also to build up your planet's engine. After placing the tile, players do two actions associated with the two infrastructure types on the tile. Be careful because some tile placements will trigger "meteors" that make all planets harder to develop and prevent it from scoring points in its row AND column.

Planet Unknown innovates on the popular polyomino trend by allowing simultaneous yet strategic turn-based play via the Lazy S.U.S.A.N. space station in the center of the table. The game also condenses a 3-hour medium weight game into about 70 minutes for 1-6 players no matter the player count.
Curious how we do it, follow along until launch!

• For another otherworldly city-building experience, you can try your hand at building a Cthulhu creature-filled theme park with Jacob Lindborg's Cthulhu Island, an upcoming release from Luudos Studio, which is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter (KS link) in March 2022.

Here's a brief description of what you can expect from Cthulhu Island, a competitive game that plays in 60-120 minutes, and has 1-6 players competing to collect fear:

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Summon creatures, build attractions and entice visitors to your otherworld theme park.

In Cthulhu Island, Cultist travel the world to create the best and most grotesque theme park, filled with creatures and elder gods from other dimensions and realms beyond this world.

During your turn, you expand the map. Then you either explore, enlist or exterminate cultists, taking actions based on your available control in an area. Each area has an associated action, that will grant you favors based on the amount of cultist available and if you can pay the elemental cost.

Throughout the game, you will face many options on your travel; gaining power from magical sources, summoning creatures, building attractions, entice visitors or destroy your opponents. It's all for the greater good (or the greater gods)!

In the end, you win by publicity. Explore, enlist, entice and exterminate in Cthulhu Island!