Joe Gamer

Infinite City is a tile based game published by AEG. The game lends itself to having serious cut-throat potential, and some tiles that seem very innocuous at first can become very strategic targets. One player’s plans can be ruined by the placement of a single tile while the placement of another can open up vast new possibilities. While I believe fans of Carcassonne should enjoy Infinite City, it reminds me more of my earliest games of Cosmic Encounter, and I put this game into the same general category: easy to learn, different every game, and the more cut throat the better.

The game consists of 120 2″x2″ tiles and 90 wooden tokens. The tokens are broken up in groups of 15, each group a different color and are used by the players to indicate tiles he or she controls. Players take turns playing tiles that represent sections of the city. There are 21 different types tiles each with a different game effect. The rules are simple, so simple in fact that the rules sheet is a single 12″x9″ page printed on both sides and folded. The rules are printed in a font that is neither cramped nor small. A good portion of the rules space is dedicated to scoring with setup taking the majority of the remaining space. The smallest portion or space in the rules goes to the actual rules themselves. This is significant because while the rules are light and fast, the game is fun!

Setup involves “shuffling” the tiles and placing them into draw piles. Five tiles are placed face down in a cross formation, and each player draws five tiles of his or her own. The first player plays a tile face up adjacent to any of the tiles already in play, places one of his own colored tokens on the tile, and the proceeds to follow the instructions on the tile. Sometimes the instructions include placing another token on a different tile, placing a new tile, flipping a face down tile, or manipulating the other tiles and/or tokens in play. If a player flips over a face down tile or places a new tile, then the player performs the actions outlined on that tile and so on. Once the player is finished following the directions of tiles, he draws new tiles until he has at least five. Those are the basic rules.

Scoring is done by counting continuous groups of three or more of a player’s tokens. Each player gets bonus points for controlling tiles that have points indicated in the upper left corner. A player controls a tile if he or she has a token on that tile, and multiple player can control the same tile. Finally the player controlling the most tiles with a particular decoration (a set of interlocking rings) gets even more points.

See? Simple. Infinite City is easy to learn, loads of fun, and JoeGamer approved.

© 2010, Joseph Little. All rights reserved.