Tiny Towns is the Perfect “Gateway Game”

Over the many years of playing Board Games, I’ve found that there are two different types of board game players. First, there are those that play traditional board games like Monopoly, Risk, and now, yes even Settlers of Catan. Then there is another breed of board game players that venture out into more difficult and deep experiences, such as Scythe, Isle of Skye, Tapestry, and more. Without actually being forced from the former into the latter, it’s actually difficult to get someone to move into the latter category. Enter what I think is the perfect “gateway game”, Tiny Towns.

How to Play

Tiny Towns is a simple to learn, hard to master game that has you placing cubes within your city to eventually build buildings, and score points. Everyone picks up a board that is divided up into grids and places it in front of them. There are various buildings that can be built, denoted by the different coloured buildings that should be placed on the table in reach of all players.

Players must then choose a card from building colour to use for that game. These cards are placed so that all players can read the bonuses and see the pattern they need to create to build the building. Each building scores differently, so players should familiarize themselves with them all, as it will factor. For example, there are cards that score you points for every similar building in the same row or column, and cards that provide bonuses for every cottage built within the village. Some cards work better with others, but overall, even randomly selecting these cards works great!

Buildings are built by placing cubes from the supply into your village, one per square. Once you’ve completed the required pattern for a building, you may construct that building on any of the spaces occupied by one of the corresponding resources cubes. Remember, the placement of your building is important as you can no longer place resources cubes on that location, limiting your ability to complete patterns.

The game continues until someone’s village is completely full of buildings, after which scores are calculated based on the objectives found on the various cards. The highest score wins.

Easy to Teach

Explaining Tiny Towns isn’t difficult at all.

1. Here are the various buildings (patterns) you want to construct within your village.
2. On your turn, call out a resources cube that all players will select and place in their village.
3. Complete patterns to construct buildings.

This is why I call Tiny Towns a “gateway game.” It has some of the deeper, more strategic elements of larger board games, but is easy to teach. Those are few and far between, but this is a great example because it has so few mechanics. Multiple games of Tiny Towns will allow new, advanced board game players to learn strategic elements within a ‘easy’ environment. Many advanced games have 10+ different mechanics to track and potentially pursue. Here, there are only a few.

Hard to Master

Even though this is a great introductory games to the more complex world of games, it’s also a game that is really hard to master, and with so many different building combinations to play with, you can play dozens of times, and always feel like you are playing a unique experience. The game itself is incredibly inexpensive, and also accessible. Getting good at the game is going to take a lot of time, dozens of games, and a sharp mind. And that’s generally how I like my board games – easy to understand, hard to master. It is what keeps me coming back week after week, and month after month.

Overall, Tiny Towns is a phenomenal experience that anyone can enjoy and understand. The more you play, the better you get. It really is a simple philosophy!