The title of San Francisco convinced me with a nice design, accessible rules and a minimum number of players (from two people). The novelty of the Rebel publishing house was created by the German designer Reiner Knizia (known for such titles as Rushing Turtles , Samurai , Fits Travel , Archimedes or Lost Cities ), and the graphics were handled by Roman Kucharski ( Draftosaurus , Zamek: Sokół ). The action takes place in the first half of the 20th century, when the city is experiencing a period of dynamic growth. We play the role of ambitious designers who take part in the San Francisco development competition.
Where will the tram go?
In general, the instruction at first reading is much more complicated than the board itself. I will not lie when I write that it is crucial not to be afraid to play, because practice shows quickly what is going on. The elements needed to create our perfect city are a board (each participant has one), project and bonus cards, tram markers and skyscraper figures. Apart from them, we also use commitment, bonus and foundation tokens in the game. It seems a lot, but ultimately the whole thing is simple.
Or maybe it is worth erecting a monument?
The player has two choices during his turn. He can either take a blueprint card from the pool and place it faceup on the table, or take one of the players already placed to use them in his city plans. Placing projects also forces you to take commitment tokens, and these, in turn, limit us during further construction (we must have fewer listed ones than the project cards that we want to take from the table). To make it more interesting how well we think over the strategy, we can reach for bonus cards or lay foundations for a skyscraper. The main goal of the game, however, is to collect more points than our opponent (or opponents). We can win by creating full districts, building a tram network and the aforementioned skyscrapers. There are several options and each is interesting. You can leave a little to chance
It’s a nice city, so colorful
It should be admitted that the gameplay provides a lot of satisfaction, and in addition, the appearance of the game pleases the eyes. Not only all the elements needed in the competition have been refined, but even the box in which we store them. Beautiful colorful houses, green squares, parks or blue waters on the waterfront add a lot of charm to the duels and allow us to easily move to the title San Francisco. What also pleased me personally was the small number of markers (in the case of this title, we are dealing only with yellow wagons for marking tram lines).
If you feel you’ve missed your calling …
This competition is really addictive! You can empathize with the role of a designer and throw a few logs at the feet of others to add more focus to the duel. The game does not get boring quickly, as it takes some time before we manage to use at least some of the possible strategies. Nice, uncomplicated and suitable both for a family evening and a meeting with friends. I recommend!
