If you keep reading or saying the game’s title as “Minecraft Town”, you’re not alone. We found that it’s a common mistake to make. Be forewarned that this game has nothing to do with Minecraft.
I forgot to take a decent shot of the front of the Minecart Town box, but I did take a side shot:
Minecart Town combines both tile-layout and resource-management mechanics:
A shot of the game board roughly half-way through the game, at the start of round 3 of 4 (see the round marker in the lower right). The tiles represent buildings you can buy with resources like stone and wood. The tiles on the right mostly relate to mid-game scoring; the ones on the left relate to generating resources (wool, coal, wheat) and end-game scoring. At this point in the game, A and I (“I” as in me, not “I” as in someone whose name begins with “I”) are tied at 12 points.My town at the point I took the above photo. In order for goods to be transported from buildings that generate resources to buildings that consume resources for points, they must be connected by tracks. Consider the Bakery at the top of the right-most column: It will score 6 points at the end of a round for each pair of a wheat and a coal cube on the tile. I’ve got two wheat on the Harvesting Center, one coal in the Silo, and one coal in the Marshlands. All of these tiles are connected via tracks, so I’ll be able to transport those goods and earn 12 points just from the Bakery.J’s board at the same point in the game. He and I have chosen to incorporate a Ranch and a Bakery into our towns, which means we’re competing for the same resource-generation tiles.A’s board at the same time. He has not yet connected the Trading Company in the lower left to the rest of the town via a track. If he’s able to transport one of each kind of resource to that tile, he’ll get 20 points at the end of each round.M’s board. She’s developed an excellent transportation network for the central tiles in the game, but still has to set up connectivity for the tiles on the left of her town. She does have a good “engine” in place for the Marketplace tile; that generates 9 points for each of three non-alike resources, and she’ll hopefully be able to generate 18 points (two sets of three) at the end of both the remaining game rounds.My town’s layout at the end of the game. Somehow I managed to pull things together……to win the game at the end with 104 points.
Even though I won by a substantial margin, for most of the game I felt like I was floundering. I think I won mostly by circumstance rather than skill.
Minecraft Town… er… Minecart Town is supposed to be a short, simple game. Though we generally enjoyed it, we didn’t find it to be either short or simple. I certainly had lots of “analysis paralysis” as I tried to make each tile purchase work for me, even after another player bought a tile I’d been hoping for.
