Point City Card Game Overview

A lot of our audience was with us in our early days of discovering modern board games. We hope those of you who fall into that category have learned a lot along the way. Hopefully we’ve removed any trepidation caused by the unique terminology and game genres that make today’s gaming so popular. Taking time to explain concepts like cooperative games or offer game convention recaps have been part of how we’ve tried to bring everyone along with us. For example, we used our overview of Point Salad from AEG to explain the meaning of the gaming term, point salad. These efforts lay the groundwork to talk about similar style games like Point City, also from Alderac Entertainment Group.

Based on its predecessor, Point City is a drafting and set collection card game utilizing a city as the theme. We’ve featured several city building games that give the feel of building a city. This falls into that category if you pay close attention to the images and descriptions while you’re playing. Featuring resources on one side of the card and buildings on the other minimizes components. This makes it a great game for travel. We brought it along on a recent family cruise and played in the dining hall. As we looked out the window, we saw a ship that looked identical to one on a card. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but trust us… the similarities were astonishing.

Setup involves sorting the decks based out the tier markings on the bottom left of the building side. Remove cards based on player count, shuffle individually then stack with tier three on the bottom. Create a 16 card, 4×4 grid (AKA the Market) in the center of the board with the resource side showing. Randomly select Civic Tokens based on player count and arrange face-up alongside the grid. Give each player an Ingenuity Card at random and you’re ready to go.

There are a limited number of action options on your turn so it keeps options pretty easy. If an entire row or column shows resource, you may opt to flip one to the building side. Either draft two orthogonally adjacent cards from the Market OR draft two from the top of the draw pile. Draft a resource card to use immediately for construction or save it for a future turn. You may only draft a Building Card from the grid if you have the resources to construct it.

Resource cards vary in value but are one-time use and are discarded when used for construction. Some buildings reflect permanent resources that may be used for construction once per turn in lieu of resource cards. Place constructed buildings in front of you in solitaire-style stacks so the permanent resource is always visible.

Some of the buildings lack a permanent resource but offer other benefits generally relating to end game scoring. Icons in the upper right help identify these. When constructing one with a civic building depicted, select from the remaining Civic Tokens in the supply.

At the end of your turn, refill the Market using the draw pile. The newly placed cards are the opposite side from what was removed. In other words, if two resources were selected, the replaced cards will be buildings and vice-versa. There are market tokens available to aid with remembering what was removed. When there are no longer enough cards to refill the Market, the round continues until all players have had an equal number of turns. Then the gameplay ends and scoring begins.

As a result of the pandemic, we’ve noticed many games incorporating instructions for a solo mode. Point City offers this as well. So if you’re looking for games with an option to play when others aren’t available, add this to your list. The more opportunities you have to play different types of games, the more you’ll discover similar mechanics. It makes trying out new games easier to approach. If Point City sounds like something you would enjoy, pick up a copy at your local game store. Prefer to order online? Find Point City on Amazon or direct from AEG. Stay up to date on the latest news and releases on AEG’s various social channels including Facebook and Tw/x.

What is your favorite game that is a spin-off from another?