How To Play City Chase

City Chase is a pretty simple game in what you do on your turn. Once the buildings are on the board and helicopters have been placed, the player who is the getaway driver places their car and the token, creating their starting location. And each of their following turns they’ll leave the token and move their car to an adjacent building, but not diagonally adjacent.

The other player(s) play as the police trying to track down the getaway driver and car. Each helicopter, there are three, can do one action. They can move or they can search. Helicopters move intersection to intersection along the road. And then they can search the building. There are three things you can find in the building, nothing, the getaway car, or a token from where the car has been.

If the getaway driver can avoid being found, or trapping themselves, they can’t cross a token, they win the game. If the police can find them under a building, the police player(s) win.

What Doesn’t Work?

I don’t have any major complaints with the game but two minor ones. In my game plays it’s much easier for the getaway driver to win. Which, I think is fine. But having a variant and a 4th helicopter for the police in there, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Especially since this is a light game. I could see an 8 year old playing it but they might prefer to have more of a chance to find the getaway driver, or their trail, early in the game and maybe push it too far in the helicopter advantage, but until they are ready for it to be harder.

And not really an issue of the game but something to know about City Chase and as the getaway driver. You can be heard moving stuff around. Probably not a major issue, but we found that chatting while the getaway driver placed covered up the noise plenty well. Is it something you can use for your advantage? Maybe.

What Works?

The hidden movement in this game is good. And it is good for all ages because it is simple. You need to remember where your vehicle is and that is it. And you barely even need to remember that, you can just look to find it again while the other player(s) have their eyes closed. The mechanic is simple of moving the vehicle and hiding it, but also a lot of fun doing that.

And I think that playing the police and figuring out where the criminal might be is fun as well. Which, for a game with two parts, or two distinct roles, is important that both are fun. Once you get that trail, I like the feeling of closing in and trying to find the two tokens, the starting token and round six token, to figure out where they are heading or might be heading.

The toy factor in this game is also amazing. I love the buildings and the helicopters for the game. I like, also, that they didn’t just make one type of building, but there are two different shapes with different heights. What does that add to the game, nothing but some fun difference on the board.

Who Is It For?

This game is one that would qualify as fun for adults, but it’s more for those buddying gamers in your life. Probably that 10-14 age range would be where it is best. But with that said, don’t sleep on it for adults. But more so, don’t sleep on it for adults as a kids game, mainly, that is fun for adults.

And I think so much with kids games that is important. You can even play with younger kids as well, I’d think. Especially if the kid and a parent team up against someone else. So if the kid and the parent or older person play as the police, they can work together in this game.

Final Thoughts on City Chase

This is an interesting game for me. I think that it’s likely going to stick in my collection, though probably not be on the main shelves. Mainly, my kid isn’t old enough to play it yet, but once he is, I can see this one being a fun one to play. Like I said in the who this is for, it is a kids game that adults will like. The game offers enough choices to make it fun.

And I really can’t talk about how much this works from both sides. That was my biggest fear going into the game that one side would be vastly superior to the other, in terms of the fun you are having. But both sides are a lot of fun. And both offer their own challenges. Only being able to move or search means the search is slow. You always want to do more. But with the getaway car, you will eventually reach the point where you need to go past a helicopter. And that is good tension as well.

Overall, a very fun game. Not one that I think is needed by everyone. But if you have a kid or play with kids, in that range, City Chase is a really fun time. And I don’t think between the toy factor and game play you’ll be disappointed in it.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B
Kids Grade: A

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The Gen Con Haul

I know that people don’t always have time to watch the videos, so I’m going to do a quick write up as well for the games that I picked up. This is not the list of everything I played, expect that tomorrow. But it is everything I bought and stuff that has come in as well.

Kingdom Rush – Not from Gen Con

This actually came in a bit ago. Kingdom Rush is going to be a tower defense game where you cast spells and try and stop waves of enemies from reaching the end. Classic tower defense, and based off of an app, I believe, that I should maybe checkout. This one I got because I got a code from Lucky Duck Games for 20% off, and it’s one I’ve wanted to try, but wouldn’t have without a discount.

City Chase – Not from Gen Con

Korea Board Games sent me City Chase to cover. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but this is going to be a family weight hidden movement or deduction game as you take helicopters around trying catch a car, from my understanding. And the car can hide under buildings, so a bit of a deduction and trying to narrow down and trap where the car can go.

Arcadia Quest – Not from Gen Con

This is another game that I maybe wouldn’t have picked up except that it was used. Arcadia Quest is basically a go into a dungeon, complete objectives, knock out your opponents sort of game. Tons of minis and expansions for it, I only got the base game, but I figure I can add more later if I want to it. Seems like a solid light game with some good tactics and fun minis.

Oathsworn – Not from Gen Con

And then we have a big game from Shadowborne Games. I backed this one on Kickstarter quite a while ago and it came in the day before I left for Gen Con. I am excited to get this campaign to the table. Two cool things for me about this game is the cool down track for abilities. You need to play cards out to cycle abilities back, down this track to your hand. So there is a puzzle with that.

Plus then you can roll as many dice as you want or draw as many cards as you want. But if you get two blanks, you fail. So there is a push your luck element to it. But, there is a less luck in the cards. The cards don’t reshuffle until all of them have been drawn. So the deck remembers and players know, you might have a hot deck with the blanks already out, or it might be cold with blanks left and just a few cards to draw.

Batman: Everybody Lies

I talked about this one yesterday, and Paint the Roses in my Highlights from Gen Con. As I said in that, I split the cost of the game with some friends, so I’ll probably be playing it tonight again. This is based off of Portal Games Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game series and system. But it has a Batman theme to it, it was a lot of fun. And it’s cool that we got the designer, Ignacy, to sign the cover for us.

Burncycle + Expansions

Burncycle is a post post apocalyptic cyperpunk world where corporations have taken over, granted this is after humanity took back over from the robots. You play as robots trying to hack into the system as well as complete objectives on the physical map. The game play seems like a lot of fun, and the production quality, as it is a Chip Theory Games is amazing. Probably one I’ll at least learn solo, if not play that way mostly.

Long Shot The Dice Game

This is a roll and write horse racing game. It’s one that I got to play the last day, and because it was the Kickstarter copy they were selling, decided I should pick it up. In this game, you are trying to buy horses, put bets on horses, and end up with the most money at the end of the game. It’s a good time, I like the artwork, and I like that there is a board, which is dry erase so you can mark it up with one of the expansions. I think it’ll be one that gets to the table pretty often in my sea of roll and write games.

Hero Realms + Expansions

Hero Realms is another one I got to demo, in fact I demoed it and got stomped. But I really liked what it was doing. And I decided to go in on it to the point where I could play it solo as well. Wise Wizard Games had a bundle you could buy to get the coop game play that allows for solo. Normally this is a head to head deck building and battling game that plays fast and you feel like you ramp up quickly.

Cartographers Expansions

No surprise here with new expansions for Cartographers that I’d grab them. This is three new map packs as well as then a bonus little hero pack for Cartographers heroes. I’m excited to see what different the maps do. And I need to play with all of the maps that I have now, because, well, there are six map packs, plus the base map which is double sided, so 8 different map options.

Paint the Roses

The other one I talked about in the highlights. Paint the Roses is a deduction game as you try and figure out what card a player has in front of them currently. You do that by putting down a tile, and then all players put down cubes on that tile if it creates a match. So if I put down a rose and my card is rose rose on it, if I put down that rose tile so it touches two other rose tiles, I’d put two cubes on it. Then everyone else would try and figure out what is my combo on my card. Simple but a ton of fun and pretty thinky.

Marvel Remix

Marvel Remix is a retheme and reskin of Fantasy Realms. In Fantasy Realms, from what I know, you are building out your best hand of cards to score points. It did it with a fantasy theme first and now with a Marvel theme. I believe that there are slight changes to the rules, but not sure what they are, and won’t really know as I haven’t played Fantasy Realms.

Lost Ruins of Arnak Expedition Leaders

Another game I got to play was Lost Ruins of Arnak. I even played it twice. Expedition Leaders is the expansion for it. It adds in some new items and relics. But the big thing that it does is it gives you, as the name would suggest, an expedition leader. They have unique powers and you start out the game with just that little bit of variability. I like that in a game, so seemed like an easy expansion to add.

NFL Five

Free game for demoing it. It’s basically a little football themed game. Not much going on it. I describe it in the video as rock, paper, scissors but harder. There is no tie and try again. It is just put down a play and hope that you match. But or something that’s football themed and from a football card company, it’s basically what I expected. And I don’t think it’s that bad, it’s just very basic.

Pocket Paragons

Finally, another game that I got handed, a little duel set demo of Pocket Paragons. I know nothing about this game, I’m assuming it’s a head to head battler, probably deck crafting, though maybe more like Dice Throne (just cards only) where you have stuff already set. I’ll have to learn it and give it a whirl, see what it is like.

Upcoming Streams

So, Wednesday, the plan is to play Stars of Akarios. I was hoping to get to rules read in the evenings at Gen Con and while I had some evening time free, I didn’t get to it. So it might get pushed back a week, depends on how well I can learn the rules today. If it does, I’ll be playing some other game solo on the stream.

Next Monday I think I’ll be doing a Top 10 list. Not sure what the list will be on. But I think that’ll be the plan. I of course, do have some games, like Long Shot the Dice Game, Cartographers, Hero Realms or Lost Ruins of Arnak that I could set-up and play solo as well. We’ll have to see what I end up wanting to do.

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