Cloud City, a board game from Blue Orange Games, should not be confused for a Tibanna gas mining colony floating in the clouds of the planet Bespin run by a smuggler named Lando. Although that might make a really cool game…

In the game, 2 to 4 players ages 10 and up, take on the roll of architects vying to win city council votes to become the best city planner. They will zone land, build skyscrapers that reach the clouds, and connect them with spectacular walkways high above the ground. The player to do this the best wins.

 

How to Play Cloud City

Set up:

To set up Cloud City, players shuffle the Cloud tiles creating a facedown draw pile in the center of the table. Each player is dealt 3 Cloud tiles, making up their starting hand, then 3 Cloud tiles are placed face up next to the draw pile.

Players also receive a starting tile, with a player order number on it, placing it in front of them and then adding the matching buildings on the two colored spots on that tile.

The building models and walkways are placed near the play area for easy access. And, that’s it, players are ready to go.

Playing:

On their turn, a player takes the following actions:

• Play a tile from their hand expanding their city base. Tiles must be placed orthogonally adjacent to previously laid tiles and cities cannot be larger than 3 rows by 3 columns (or 4×4 in a two player game).
• Add matching colored buildings to the newly laid tile. Each tile has two building spots that are colored specifying what color buildings should be placed on them.

• Build walkways (optional) from one building to another. There are 3 different walkway types that match the color of building they go on. No single building can ever have more than 2 walkways attached to it and players can not build a walkway over an area with no Cloud tile (IE empty space).

• Draw a new Cloud tile from either one of the 3 face up tiles or the top of the draw pile and add it to their hand.

Play continues until all players have completed their 3×3 city. Then players add up their city council votes (numbers on their bridges). The player with the highest total wins.

 

What we liked about City of Clouds

On the exterior, Cloud City looks like a pretty simple game. However looks can be deceiving. Although you’re not doing a lot each turn, there’s a considerable amount of thought that needs to go into what you do.

Placing a tile in the right spot is important, not only to set yourself up to score the maximum points, but also to make sure you don’t block adding future walkways to buildings.

The same goes for choosing a new tile. If you pick the wrong one you may end up not being able to do what you originally set out to do.

One of the great things about Cloud City is that turns go quickly. If everyone is paying attention and planning ahead, games can be played much faster than the play time on the box cover. My son and I finish 2-player games in about 20 minutes.

As usual, the quality of games by Blue Orange Games is top notch. That’s exactly the case for Cloud City. There aren’t a whole lot of components, but those that are here are great.

 

 

Finally, the end product is awesome to look at — some serious table presence. Here are some shots of what our cities looked like once we finished our games. Note: Some might not conform to the two walkway rule, I kept forgetting that one.

 

How does Cloud City score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Cloud City is a very cleaver puzzle style game that scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter. In fact, much like my last review (Minecraft Builders and Biomes) we have gotten many plays out of this one with more planned (as it’s part of my 5×5 challenge).

The game is very easy to teach and easy to learn — making it perfect for a family like ours. Our younger kids, 6 and 8, easily picked up on the rules and did a great job competing. While my 11 year-old kicks my butt most of the time, making it one of his favorite games to play.

Our shelves are packed with games that take 45-60 min to play, so Cloud City makes an excellent lightweight addition to our collection.

 

About the Author

Dane is an Advertising and Layout Manager for a national magazine by day and a husband, father of four, and board gamer by night (and mornings). He has a passion for board games and believes board games help bring families closer together while providing kids a unique way to learn many diverse skills. And he thinks they are downright fun!!!

We’d like to thank Blue Orange Games for a review copy of Cloud City.