Point City and the Important Point of Building Tiny Cities
Construct a bustling city filled with all sorts of buildings to produce more and more resources in Point City.
I’m on a roll with some of the city-building solo games I’ve been playing lately! As if it knew that it was the right time to arrive, Point City showed up recently. The artwork looked adorable and I loved how gameplay sounded like it would be right in line with what I enjoy about constructing buildings. Off to the table to give this one a whirl for the first time!
Game Overview
Game Name: Point City
Publication Year: 2023
Designers: M. Johnson, R. Melvin, and S. Stankewich
Artist: Dylan Mangini
Publishers: AEG and Flatout Games
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
The market features double-sided cards that may be flipped over before making a decision. Resources help fulfill the costs of many buildings, yet a lot of them produce their own resources or provide some more bonuses. It’s all about creating a city full of buildings!
First Play
September 8, 2023
Complexity
2
Latest Play
September 9, 2023
Expansions
1
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
4
Play Time
15 Minutes
High Score
47
Game Area
30" x 20"
Low Score
40
Fun with Learning
I was accompanied by a few Calico Critters while perusing the rulebook! The cats got into some cozy positions to look adorable, while one was clearly in disguise… Ha ha!
There wasn’t anything too complex here, aside from the somewhat lengthy setup process. Removing cards from 3 decks wasn’t the quickest step and took up some time.
Having some control over the solo opponent was quite interesting, though, and gave me more choices to think of.
As I gently moved these lazy cats out of the way, it was onto some actual gameplay to create my first city!
Stacking the Cards
This artwork is adorable! Although not all of the cards are unique, there isn’t a whole lot of repetition. The bright colors make the city-building experience just lovely.
However, the only important information on these cards is at the very top where a permanent resource might be, or victory points. Only the top card is visible in these stacks.
Conceptually, it makes sense to parse this information at a glance. It just felt like a shame to hide all of the artwork.
Gameplay also felt a little lighter and easier than I expected… Time to increase the difficulty level a bit.
The Luck of the Draw
With the way the market worked to choose 2 adjacent cards, it was helpful to build up permanent resources. I had a better chance of picking up a pair of buildings.
Resource cards were useful early on, but wasting turns to keep picking them up was very expensive and costly.
Although the solo opponent needed to be managed, the set path through the rows and columns of the market was easy to predict. I swooped in to buy buildings occasionally.
My issue was with the difficulty level: It all seemed rather easy with pretty obvious choices and limited variety.
Food Cart Celebration
A-ha! One of the best cards in the deck, at least according to the Calico Critters, was the food cart. This called for a return of the popcorn tricycle, which woke up the cats!
This is still the coolest vehicle, and I challenge any city out there to argue that it’s not a public necessity. Ha ha!
Despite my laughs and enjoyment over the artwork, I found all of my plays boiled down to picking up the most buildings and producing a lot of permanent resources.
Even at the highest difficulty level, I won during my first attempt. Adorable to look at, but not at all challenging.
What Draws Us Back to Play the Same Game?
I’m certainly guilty of flitting from one game to another all the time, but the ones I enjoy the most offer something that makes me want to continue playing. It can be a variety of different things, yet in many cases, I’m looking for a game experience that’s at least a little different each time. I like the ability to try out different strategies and learn as I go.
Here, I felt like my choices were made for me based on the market. I had to manage the solo opponent to a certain extent, yet I just needed to look for ways to construct the most buildings. There were a few times when I had to chain together multiple turns to afford the most expensive buildings. That was awesome! But far too rare to enjoy.
The need to sort all of the cards and do extra work during both setup and cleanup also took me out of the game a little too much. So many buildings looked like they would create tons of variability, yet I never felt like there was anything different about the market. Still, I’m happy I can identify why some solo games aren’t working for me nowadays.
Session Overview
Play Number: 1-4
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Easy, Medium, and Hard Difficulty Levels
Outcome: 47-31, 40-33, 42-41, 41-47 (3 Wins & 1 Loss)
My only loss happened because the solo opponent kept getting civic token buildings added to the spots they picked from, and I didn’t have enough resources to keep buying those cards. I still think this artwork is about as charming as can be, but I don’t see myself playing this that much… It just seems easy enough and only a handful of turns create intriguing decisions in the market.
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
7
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
7
Originality
Design & Theme
5
Quality
Components & Rules
9
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
7
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
4
+ Pros (Positives)
- Double-sided cards provide interesting ways to fill up the market and flip over cards from the deck each round.
- Since the solo opponent takes a set path, it’s possible to control the buildings it picks up to minimize its score.
- All of the artwork is very charming with a lot of unique sorts of buildings presented in a bright, cheery style.
- With the stacked piles of cards, the play area remains pretty compact and can be even smaller with more stacking.
- Civic tokens provide interesting choices with the various ways they award victory points based on conditions.
- Gameplay moves quickly with very little downtime, although it’s important to refill the market correctly.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Decisions are usually very straightforward and obvious from the available buildings and resources in the market.
- High scores are often tied to the luck of the draw with which buildings are randomly drawn and placed adjacently.
- Stacking cards with the same permanent resource means that most of the artwork is covered up very quickly.
- There isn’t a good mixture of challenging gameplay and interesting choices to make each play feel that different.
Victory Conditions
Score the Most Points
- Overall Goal Progress 80%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 40 points.
Win at least 1 game at the easy difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the medium difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the hard difficulty level.
Score at least 50 points.
Continue the Conversation
Have you had a chance to play the solo mode of Point City? What are some other lighter solo city-building games you enjoy? I felt like I solved this one a little too early on, and don’t know how unique it will feel as I continue to play. Still, the artwork is lovely and I’m happy to have found a food cart. Ha ha! Guess I need to cool it on building these cities!
Ah! Your score for this game isn’t quite what I’d hoped for. I’ll be more cautious if I consider it further, since I had it in my watch list.
It’s certainly a nice enough sort of game, but I don’t see myself playing it that often. I felt like I saw pretty much all there is to see after a couple of plays. The solo opponent wasn’t particularly challenging, either. You’ll always get my honest thoughts, though! Maybe this is to balance out all of the times I’ve damaged the wallets of the world? Ha ha!