Mission: Review - My City
Released in 2020, My City garnered a lot of positive attention from gamers for being an easy legacy game from Reiner Knizia. Through 8 different scenarios and over 24 games, you will compete to build the best city. Each scenario offers a slight twist on the ruleset, making each game a little different from the last. My City, at its heart, is a tile-placement game with legacy elements made for families. But does it live up to the hype?
Legacy games have become a very popular genre over the last few years, but you may be asking yourself, “What is a legacy game?” A legacy game is a game that lasts for multiple sessions where players make irreversible and permanent changes to the game board or other game pieces. Other examples of the genre include Pandemic Legacy, Betrayal Legacy, The King’s Dilemma, and Clank! Legacy–Acquisitions Incorporated. All of these games, including My City, have moments where you add stickers or destroy or write on game components that change the way the game plays from that point on.
My City is the simplest of the games I mentioned earlier. The game is super easy to teach and learn. Each round you will flip over the top card from the construction card deck. This card shows a specific polyomino tile, basically Tetris shape pieces, that each player has. After the card is revealed, each player will place this piece onto their own board. The first tile must be placed adjacent to the river, every new tile must be placed so it is touching a previously placed tile. The round continues like this until either no one can place anymore tiles onto their board or everyone has decided to stop. There are a couple of other rules such as you cannot build on the forest or mountain spaces and you cannot build on top of other buildings. Once the round ends, you will score and whoever has the most points wins the round and gets to fill in progress symbols on their board.
Because this is a legacy game, there are other rules that get added or removed as you play, but I don’t want to spoil anything so I haven’t mentioned them. But after every round, you will gain stickers to add to your board. A lot of the time these stickers are rocks, trees, and light green spaces. This is generally used as a sort of catch-up mechanism. Winners generally get rocks and everyone else generally gets trees. At the end of each round, rocks showing will lose you points, and trees showing will give you points. Progress symbols are probably the most important, and prominent, legacy element of the game though. As you play through each scenario, you will gain progress symbols which you fill in with a pen on the top of your board. It is in your best interest to try to get the most progress symbols as you can.
My City was an absolute joy to play. Each scenario introduces a fun, new addition to the game that helps keep each game fresh. The game is also incredibly fast to play as each game only lasts about 30 minutes; each scenario is 3 games, so you can complete a scenario in 90 minutes. You should try to play the game with the same group of people because of how the legacy elements work, which could be a downside for some. But I imagine this game works at any player count because there is almost no player interaction.
The gameplay can get a little repetitive, though each scenario shakes things up just enough to keep you hooked. One other thing to note is that because this is a legacy game, you can only play through the campaign once. However, you can continue to play the game with all the rules you learned and with the unique boards you’ve created by placing stickers. Additionally, if you wish to not play the campaign, each board has a side you can use for the “eternal game” of My City and also has its own rules. If you are looking for a simple, family-friendly game, I cannot recommend My City enough.
Likes
Easy rules
Fast to play
Legacy elements
Dislikes
Slightly repetitive gameplay
Need the game group of players
If this sounds like a game that would be fun for you, head on over to any of our two Mission: Board Games locations to pick up a copy.
About the author: Will Purdy is an avid board game enthusiast and barista at Urban Prairie Coffee in Mission, KS. Follow him on instagram @boardgamebarista or on Board Game Geek: fidgetyrain