My City

My City is a 2020 release from Reiner Knizia, a celebrated designer within the industry. I’d previously played his auction games (Modern Art, High Society) which I really enjoyed, and I am always amazed at the variation in his board games design and mechanics.

My City is a polyomino tile-laying legacy game consisting of 24 episodes through which the players will develop a city from scratch. Made for 2-4 players, I played this at the 2 player count with my friend Jason and it worked well, although talking to other gamers I’ve been told that more players do not add much in term of down-time (we averaged 20-30 minutes per episode) and can help balance out some of the end of episode rewards.

Given the legacy nature of My City, I’ll keep my review spoiler free. For those new to legacy board games, this meant that every episode, new dynamics were added to the game with additional rules and components and depending on who won, there were different permanent changes to our game boards. 

The use of episodes meant that rules slowly develop and the game becomes increasingly (although not overly) complex. The game is at its core, a card deck which is revealed one at a time to indicate which coloured shape needed to be placed onto the board. Each player would simultaneously place until they could not or did not want to place any more shapes. Based on the core rules and any accumulative additional rules from prior episodes, scoring would occur. Usually, the runner-up would get a positive change; this catch-up mechanism helped to keep the game competitive over the 24 episodes. In our playthrough, I actually caught up in the last few episodes and ended up losing by 1 point overall, when the wrong piece came up at the wrong time in episode 24. (Jason reminds me of this whenever they have a chance…)

There was a level of theme as each episode brought about a change which meant new buildings or terrains were introduced. Sometimes, a decision made from a previous episode would come back to bite, and it helped make each episode feel impactful. 

This was the first legacy game that Jason and I have played and it really changed how I feel about this sub-genre. Whilst I have become accustomed to thinking about board games in terms of replayability (or a gamer’s favourite ‘price per play’), My City felt very refreshing in being an experience due to the permanent nature of decisions and changes to the game. Also note that with 2 players, with some small tweaks, it is possible to play through the whole game again (I’ve gifted my copy to friends to try).

The game also has an alternate set-up for repeatable play on the other side of the game boards. If you’re looking to try a legacy game and want something that is easy to set-up, family-friendly and light(ish) on rules, My City is a wonderful choice.