Greetings Sir/Madam Mayor of the most perfect, happiest-ever city!
This is your character in Happy City, a city-building card game for 2-5 players, ages 10+, in about 30 minutes of strategic, productive competitive fun where the goal is to grow your city to ten building types of your choice.
Players each begin their city with two coins and a Market card, which has an income of 1 coin.
The play area is set up with three stacks of Building cards sorted by color, Residence cards, and Expert Bonus Building cards
Play happens in rounds, and the first phase of each round is to gain income. All players simultaneously take coins from the bank equal to the sum of all the income icons on the cards in their city. Income starts with 1 when players only have the Market in their city, but increases as cities expand.
The second phase has several quick parts:
- Optional: Discard a face-up Building card from the building supply tableau.
- Reveal 3 total cards from any of the Building card decks.
- Do 1 of the following:
- Purchase a face-up Building card from the supply
- Purchase a Residence card
- Take 1 coin from the bank
- Claim any single Bonus Building card. (Only one can be claimed during the game.)
Cities cannot have any duplicate buildings, so you’re going for variety, but also citizens and happiness. Green cards will help you gain more citizens and orange cards have the most hearts.
Once the first player adds a 10th building to their city, complete the current round and then calculate score by multiplying the number of citizens by the number of hearts in your city. The player with the most happiness points wins!
GAMESCHOOLING
Games that require multiplication are uncommon, which is why Happy City is such a fantastic gameschooling option. The game has many excellent gameschooling target skills, but the focus on multiplication/math is my favorite because it’s so unusual!
Happy City is quick to learn and easy to play, but encourages players to think strategically, make logical decisions, take some risks, and get some experience with principles of economics (opportunity cost, supply and demand, etc.).
Thanks to Gamewright for another must-have educational card game!
