The Bottom Line

Tiny Towns is a great family board game incorporating animals, city building, and abstract strategy. A special shoutout to its super-cute and colorful wooden game pieces. For these reasons and many more (as you'll see below), Tiny Towns gets the two big thumbs up from the Bandit.

The Details

Game Category: Abstract Strategy, City Building
Game Mechanisms: Pattern Building, Variable Player Powers, Variable Setup

The Overview

Players rotate turns as the Master Builder, however all players play on everyone’s turn. During a turn, players each pick up one cube, all of the same type (decided by the Master Builder),and play it on their own player 4x4 grid board, this is where a bit of luck, or bad luck comes into play.  Players are attempting to replicate patterns shown on cards, placing resource cubes in certain layouts to construct buildings. As the game progresses this becomes much more difficult with some tough choices, for example when the Master Builder calls a resource you don’t want, you will be scrambling to decide where to play it, without messing with your places. There are eight types of buildings in the game, however their functions can change each game, making this game highly replayable, as players never have the same puzzle twice. The game finishes when players can not place any more resources or construct additional buildings.  At games end, any empty squares earn you a negative point. The player with the most points is the winner.

Tiny Towns is published by AEG, and as a relatively new game, released in 2019, we think this game needs much more praise. The game plays in 45-60 minutes and allows 1-6 players – YES! There is a solo option available with this great game. Regardless of the player count the play time does not change much, so you don’t have to worry about it dragging on with 6 players (although would that really be so bad? You will play it back to back regardless we are sure!). It is also worth noting that while the publisher states this game is for players 14 and older, we believe this game could be played with players as young as 10.

The Verdict

Tiny Towns has been received very well, with a BGG score of 7.4, ranking in the top 100 family board games (as of this publication date).

The Dice Tower

Drive Thru Review

Heard enough? So have we! Grab a copy of Tiny Towns today from Board Game Bandit.