Welcome to has been on my list to try for a long time. It’s a favourite for many and there’s a lot different versions and expansions available. I really like roll and write or flip and write games. I find them fun and easy to play solo because there isn’t a lot of set up and ifyou want to play with a group this can scale to as many players as you’d like. Everyone will play at the same time the three cards that are drawn so not really any waiting between turns. Once you get the hang what each card does the game becomes pretty straight forward so I’d consider it a fairly inviting game. Component wise, there isn’t much in the box, just some cards and the player pad so it isn’t overly fun to unbox. However, since there’s not a lot of components the price stays pretty reasonable.

The game comes with a 100 player sheets. Personally I prefer when games have white boards because I get paranoid about running out of pages. They do offer free digital copies so you can print more. However I would still consider laminating pages and getting some markers for the box.

For replay-ability, the combinations are going to change every time so each game is different but it can still feel repetitive after a few plays. I think it will depend on how much you like this style of game.

Welcome to is designed by Benoit Turpin and published by Blue Cocker Games. This is for 1 to 100 players and takes about half an hour. You will also need some pencils for this one.

Contents

• 29 City Cards
• 81 Construction Cards
• 4 Player Aids
• 100 Player Sheets plus a QR code to download more sheets

In a nutshell, for this game you are architects building neighbourhoods in the 1950s.

Set Up

Every player needs a pencil and a neighbourhood sheet.

Shuffle and choose 3 city plan cards. You will need one n1, n2 and n3 cards. Place them where everyone can see.

Shuffle the construction cards and deal them into 3 stacks of 27 cards each with the house numbers face up. The cards will be flipped to discard to their right.

How To Play

At the start of the turn, flip over the top card on the 3 construction decks a place to the right of the deck. This will create a combination of street numbers and effects. Players will then simultaneously choose one of the 3 combinations to fill in their sheet. Players can use the same combination as someone else. The house number will be written on an empty house and must be written in ascending order from left to right.

If a player can’t fill in the combination, instead of writing in a house number they will cross off the lowest numbered space for the building permit refusal.

If the house number is successfully placed, players will move on to filling in the effect.

Once house numbers and effects are written in, cards are turned over creating a new combination.

There are a few different kinds of effects in the deck:

Surveyor – The player can build a fence between two houses by drawing a line on the white dotted space. A completed estate is a row of 1 to 6 houses with numbers between two fences. Completed estates are used to fulfil the City Plans.

Real Estate Agent – To use this effect choose a Real Estate column and cross off the top lowest number. It will be used for scoring at the end of the game.

Landscaper – For this effect you can build a park by crossing off one of the trees at the end of the street. It must be on the same street as the numbered house you added.

Pool Manufacturer – Use this effect to build a pool. If a player writes a house number on a property with a pool, the pool is built and you can cross off the lowest numbered space on the pool column. If you don’t have this effect you can still write a number on a house with a pool, but it won’t be considered built. Also if you have this effect and you use the number on a house without a pool, you wont get to build a pool there either.

Temp Agency – For this effect you can add or subtract 1 or 2 to the house number for that turn. Each time you use this effect cross off one box from the temp agency. During end game scoring the player with the most crossed off will score 7 points, the second player scores 4 points and third most gets 1 point. For a tie players will score the same amount.

BIS – This effect will let the player duplicate a house number on any street. The new house must be adjacent to the house with the same number. The houses cannot be separated with a fence. Cross off the lowest numbered space in the bis column. The smallest unchecked number will be subtracted during end of game scoring.

City Plan Cards

City plan cards are placed out at the beginning of the game as goals for building estates with mandated sizes. The first player to meet the requirements gains the higher points on the cards and turn it to the approved side. Everyone else will get the lower amount once they reach that goal.

After a goal is reached those estates cannot be used for another city plan. The first player to finish a city plan can choose to reshuffle all the construction cards including the discard pile. Which can be useful if you think the deck has run out of a certain effect or number.

End of Game

The game ends when one of three conditions is met.

• a player crosses off their third building permit refusal
• a player has built all of the houses
• a player finish all the three city plan cards.

Once the end of game is triggered calculate points on your sheet and the highest points wins.

Welcome to is fairly easy to teach and simple to set up. The ability to scale this to as many players as you want, as well as having simultaneous play always bring me back to this type of game.