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Quick Look: Minecart Town.
Designers: Aya Taguchi, Shun Taguchi
Artist: 別府さい (Sai Beppu)
Publisher: JELLY JELLY GAMES
Year Published: 2024 (Current LATE PLEDGE link at bottom of review)
Create your very own minecart town in this tile placing game!
Your settlers have arrived in a promising new land, searching for a prosperous safe haven. Surrounded by nothing other than raw resources, can you lead them towards developing a pleasant and profitable town?
In Minecart Town, you earn victory points by constructing buildings, producing resources, building railroad tracks, and running an efficient minecart transport network. Establish the most valuable town by planning resourcefully and via well timed construction!
The game takes place over 4 rounds, with most of the action being simultaneous. The resources your buildings produce need to be transported to other buildings via your constructed railroad tracks. With limited resources available, how will you optimize your town?
Review:
Overview:
I really enjoy tile laying games because there is usually a great number of combinations and layouts that can occur; you don’t feel locked into a single path through the game. I was intrigued by the idea that tiles had to be connected, but not just connected, connected by rails. In addition, the game includes resource management, meaning you have to pick and choose on what to use your resources for because you aren’t going to be able to do everything. With so much possibility it is very difficult to gauge who is winning at any given moment. You may think you’re doing well, but that can change quickly.
After opening the box and seeing the amount of components, which doesn’t seem like much, I was wondering if it was going to deliver the myriad of outcomes for which I was hoping. Thankfully, there was a depth of gameplay that scratched that itch and made the game highly enjoyable. I will likely be trying to get this game on more tables.
The game is from Japanese designers and a Japanese publisher so the game includes instructions in both English and Japanese. The English rule book is well written/translated and fairly easy to follow; meaning not many grammar or idiom mistakes.
The rule book follows good rule book conventions with clear information, a logical progression, relevant examples, and extra information where needed. The rule book starts by listing all of the components in the box, clearly identifying each component. A basic tile layout and explanation is then provided along with the game setup instructions. A game and round overview is then provided so you get a sense of how the game plays. Each turn/action is then described, with examples for each action. Round end and game end is then described. Solo game play rules follow. The end of the book includes a list/description of each of the tiles in the game (would prefer them to be bigger graphics, but they are ok) and an icon reference sheet.
The setup is simple and not really time consuming. Separate the A, B, and C Tiles and put them in their respective bags. Place the main game board in the center of the table and place A Tiles on the A Tile spaces and C Tiles on the C Tile spaces. Place the round marker on Round 1. Place the rail track tiles next to the board. Place all of the resource cubes next to the board. Each player takes the starting tile and point markers of the color of their choice. A start player is chosen (only relevant to the Construction phase), and play begins.
In Minecart Town, you are the architect of your town. Your town is relying on you to make wise decisions and make the town grow and be prosperous. Your fellow players have the same goal, but in their own town (play is mostly asymmetric). If you can create the most prosperous town, you can win the game.
There are 3 main mechanics for the game. The main mechanic is tile laying tableau building. Players place tiles in their town orthogonally adjacent to one another to create a tableau. Sometimes tile laying is efficient, and other times later tiles could work better if you had made a different arrangement earlier in the game. The second mechanic is resource management. Players use generated resources to perform actions and earn points throughout the game. The amount of resources a player has is determined by tiles in their town. The final mechanic is engine building. You want to design your town and make decisions that will allow for creating resources and the best use of resources. If you can do all three of these mechanics well, you are likely to win the game.
Minecart Town is played over 4 rounds, but each round has an indeterminate number of turns; players continue taking as many turns as they would like and can afford. The round ends when all players have passed in succession.
Once setup is complete, the first phase begins, which is Production. In the Production Phase, each player places resources from the supply on all tiles that produce goods, as long as there is space for them. Play then moves to the Construction Phase. Players take turns constructing other town tiles or rail tracks. If a player can’t or doesn’t want to take a turn they may Pass; passing does not mean you are out of the round and may take actions at a later time as long as everyone else hasn’t also passed in order. The Transportation Phase is next. All players simultaneously move any remaining goods on tiles around their town based on transportation restrictions. Once all goods have been transported, the final phase is the Processing phase. In this phase players process goods on tiles either into other goods or into points. The board is then set up for the next round and play continues. After the 4th round the game ends and the player with the most points wins.
Keeping the game short. Many games that have an engine building aspect get out of hand toward the end of the game. By keeping the game to a limited number of rounds it forces players to get their engine going but focus on one aspect. Since the game is only 4 rounds, the out of control engines are kept in check, but the variable number of turns per round provides players with a seemingly endless number of choices to make.
The transportation of goods can be complicated at times. In the basic game goods can pass through tiles as long as that resource type is not depicted; if the resource type is depicted it must stop at that tile. It can be easy to not recognize this and build out your network in a fashion that does not let you transport goods the way you were thinking. In some ways the advanced variant where goods can only be transported on rails and cannot pass through buildings may be easier for players to grasp.
Limited options for resource usage. To build most tiles and all rails requires either wood, stone, or both. The other resources, coal, wheat, and sheep, are mainly used to convert resources or earn points. It would be nice if there was a basic exchange, like where you could use any 2 goods for a single other good, but you can’t. It would also be good if the costs of tiles was more/different from just wood and stone. Thematically it doesn’t really make sense, but I think the game would be enhanced by this.
I was pleasantly surprised by this game, not that I thought it would be bad, but that it was better than I expected. In fact, the group I play with most often was intrigued when I got it to the table and thoroughly enjoyed playing it. I would love to see a 5 or 6 player version of this game, which I think is very doable. That doesn’t change my decision to keep this game prominent on my game shelf. It’s a game that you can quickly pull out and teach. I will be playing it more often I’m sure.
Players Who Like:
Tile laying games, resource management games, engine building games, and games with plenty of choices
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Thomas Shepherd- Reviewer
I grew up loving to solve puzzles, play games, and have fun. In my younger years I had fun playing pencil games, enjoyed the creativity of playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, and generally hanging out with others. My favorite thing to do was to make puzzles of all kinds, mazes, word games, picture games, etc.
Sadly my career took me in a different direction, solving computer problems rather than gaming problems.
Gaming came back into my life, though, in a big way about 15 years ago, and I have held onto it since. I still enjoy designing games and have 9 published titles, which I did through my own game publishing company, Toresh Games, prior to the Covid pandemic. Sadly I was not able to sustain the company through the pandemic.
I highly encourage people to play games, make friends, and have fun. As a game enthusiast, I would love to see a return to games as the best social media platform for the masses.
All of Thomas Shepherd’s reviews can be found HERE.