Get into…Between two cities Essential edition overview
‘You are a world-renowned master planner who has been asked by two different cities to help them rebuild their cities to help them rebuild their city centres. Projects of such significance require the expertise of more than one person, so for each assignment you are paired with another master planner to execute your grandiose plans. Will your planning and collaborative skills be enough to design the most impressive cities in the world?’
Get into…Between two cities Essential edition gameplay
‘At the end of the game, each 5 x 5 city is scored for how happy it makes its citizens. Your final score is the lower of the scores of the two cities you helped design, and the player with the highest final score wins the game. To win, you have to share your attention and devotion equally Between Two Cities.’
Draw 9 cards from the box to form your hand. Secretly choose two tiles from your hand to play – you will place on in the city to your left and one to the city to the right. You can discuss this with the other players after the selection phase. The remaining cards which you didn’t use from your hand are placed to the left of you and then when you have placed your first two tiles, you will have a new pile to select from until there is only one card left in each pile that is being passed around.
In round two, you select two duplex tiles and place them in the your city, discussing with the other players as needed.
In round three, you take the same steps as round 3, when you should end up with a 5 x 5 grid of tiles. You will then score your city according to the different scoring conditions on the tiles.
There is an option to play a different type of game two player and also to add a landscape mat variant which adds some asymmetry to the game.
3 words to describe this game: planning, landscape, cooperation
Get into…Between Two Cities Essential edition components
129 Building tiles
24 Duplex tiles
These tiles are well made and good quality. The artwork looks good and you can easily distinguish between the different types of buildings and the icons associated with them
7 landscape mats
These landscape mats add asymmetry to the game. They provide a starting point for the building out of your town. This will be different from your opponent and will affect how you will want to go about scoring your town
7 city tokens
Used to place on top of your piles of cards from your hand which you pass round the table. Wooden, interesting designs but don’t add to the gameplay
7 reference cards
Handy for reminders of scoring conditions
1 score pad (100 sheets)
For scoring, plenty of them to keep you going.
1 rulebook
Straight forward and easy to follow
Get into…Between Two Cities Essential Edition overall thoughts
Initially, we were a little disappointed with this Stonemaier game as it didn’t seem to have the same production quality as others that we have in our collection. Whilst we were a little disappointed, we still wanted to give it a fair play through as we have always been happy with Stonemaier games and don’t think we have come across a bad game yet. We have only had a chance to play this game two player, which gives it a different feel to the larger player count. It can play up to 7 and as low as 1. Whilst we haven’t fully road tested it, we can appreciate the elements of what would happen if we were playing with higher player counts but our review can only reflect how we found it as a two player game at the moment.
This game was easy to learn and pick up and we felt pretty confident after only a few plays that we could easily teach it to others and they would get enjoyment out of it straight away. It isn’t pretentious and it does exactly what it sets out to do – a tile laying puzzle, where you agonise over which tiles to take, which to leave for your opponents, which might you be able to get on the next turn around etc.
You won’t know who has won until you tot up the scoring as the tiles all have different scoring conditions, some dependent on conditions in your own city and some comparing yours and others cities. In the two player game, you total the amount scored on both cities. In higher player counts, you have to score the lowest total between your two cities. This means you have to work equally on both trying to maximise scoring for both. It plays in roughly 30 minutes so is great for busy adults, who just want a puzzle game to play in an evening or as a filler between bigger games.
We enjoyed this game and despite the production quality not being what we might have expected we think it is brilliantly understated and a great game.
