Sprawlopolis is perhaps the biggest name in tiny card games. Weighing in at only 18 cards, like all of Button Shy's offerings, the game and its sequels pack crunchy city-building decisions into tiny packages. Playable as a solo puzzle or cooperating on construction with friends, and actually fitting into your pocket, they make great portable distractions from ever-present smartphone screens. (And they're darn cheap, as far as tabletop games go.)
Now you can get in on the ground floor of the latest urban planning project with Casinopolis, currently being funded on Kickstarter: construct your own new Vegas strip of casinos while abiding by various restrictions and goals that change each time you play.
Just like the 3 previous games in the series (Sprawlopolis, Agropolis, Naturopolis) you'll be piecing together a landscape one card at a time, trying to join up similarly colored areas while contending with the road sections winding through each card. This time around there's a big twist in the form of the slot-machine themed icons running along the highways, yet another factor to consider: lining up jackpots will score you big points.
This is all before considering the trademark variable scoring goals on the reverse of each card: every time you play you'll flip 3 at random, giving you unique requirements and metrics to focus on and making the strategy of each game distinct. Maybe this time your Roman and Egyptian-themed casinos want to be adjacent to each other, or you'll score extra for closing your roads into loops, or perhaps you're trying to form the biggest possible groupings of identical slot icons.
Being pulled in many directions at once, and the shuffle creating different conditions each time you play, is the crux of the formula that gives the games their satisfying sit-and-think-about-it feel. I'm excited for this latest addition to the line-up and the new elements they're throwing into the mix.
You can back Casinopolis on Kickstarter from now until the campaign ends on Saturday, February 15th. Check out the campaign page for more info on the game, the various reward tiers and shipping prices, as well as a free mini-expansion they're including with the base game.
Disclaimer: Thinky Games is part of the Carina Initiatives and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.
