2212: Ginkgo Biloba, the oldest and strongest tree in the world, has become the symbol of a new method for building cities in symbiosis with nature. Humans have exhausted the resources that the Earth offered them, and humanity must now develop cities that maintain a delicate balance between resource production and consumption. Habitable space is scarce, however, and mankind must now face the challenge of building ever upwards. To develop this new type of city, you will gather a team of experts around you, and try to become the best urban planner for Ginkgopolis.
In Ginkgopolis, the city tiles come in three colors: yellow, which provides victory points; red, which provides resources; and blue, which provides new city tiles. Some tiles start in play, and they're surrounded by letter markers that show where new tiles can be placed.
Begin with three Character cards which grant you starting resources and bonuses to power your game actions. On a turn, each player chooses a Construction or Urbanization card from his hand simultaneously. Players reveal these cards, adding new tiles to the border of the city in the appropriate location or placing tiles on top of existing tiles. Each card in your hand that you don't play is passed on to your left-hand neighbor, so keep in mind how your play might set up theirs!
When you build over a tile, you add its “power" card to your tableau, which provides you additional abilities during the game, allowing you to scale up your building and point-scoring efforts.
- Very streamlined automa; easy to use.
- Captures the multiplayer tension with randomness that still feels meaningful.
- High randomness can create swingy outcomes; some players may want more predictability.
- City-building with color/icon-driven interaction and color-shifting tiles.
- Urban development with tile drafting and long-term city growth.
- Randomized participation via Howl automa that drives tile placement.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- closed drafting — Automated opponent Howl uses a random card to determine builds.
- Randomized draw and color shifts — Random elements influence which colors change and swing the board state.
- Tile laying and area control — Tile placement affects color dominance and city expansion.
- tile placement — Tile placement affects color dominance and city expansion.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- One of my favorite games of all time.
- The joy of obsession is puzzling out your servants and your guests and trying to put on the best social activities and get the money to get the improvements for your estate to restore your family's reputation.
- The AI system is brilliantly done, and it's so quick and simple to manage.
- This is about as simple as a solo opponent can get.
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I hate those things with a passion they suck all the joy out of the dice
- I do love to actually roll my Dice and see them bouncing around
- this is number one by a mile
References (from this video)
- Hal (solo bot) adds chaotic but controllable tension
- area majority combined with drafting translates well to solo
- dynamic city-building feel even in solo
- bot (Hal) can be chaotic and punishing
- not as tense as multiplayer drafting
- dynamic urban growth and district control
- city-building with area majority
- chaotic, city-evolving strategy
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area majority with drafting — Players draft and place to gain majority in regions while city evolves.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Voidfall is one of my favorite games of all time.
- I love that he brought completely new mechanisms to solitare voidfall that aren't used in the competitive multiplayer mode.
- Ultimately, Voidfall shows that even highly interactive games can make for great solo experiences as long as you have a designer dedicated to the art form.
- Solo tricktaking. Actually, is tricktaking one word? Maybe I only need two words.
- Heat not only exposes how ridiculous that opinion is, but I think it shows how much the genre has suffered by not including solo play.
References (from this video)
- smooth gameplay with multiple actions per turn
- solid engine for city-building decisions
- niche appeal due to complexity
- city-building with multi-use cards
- central city expansion and governance
- abstract yet flavorful
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- dice drafting — draft dice to take actions and influence results
- Multi-use cards — cards can be tucked under the player board in four ways to trigger effects
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- these are the games that have stood the test of time for me each one I've played every year for a decade or more
- Robinson Crusoe for me it came out in 2012 I got it immediately
- it's the ultimate forever game
References (from this video)
- New approach to city building emphasizing ecological harmony
- Potential depth from tile colors and card interactions
- Not much given in this excerpt about gameplay length or scale
- Unclear without more detail in beta
- Sustainable urban growth
- A futuristic city-building scenario emphasizing harmony with nature
- Strategic, tile-based city construction with card-defined actions
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- character_cards — Utilize character cards to trigger actions and bonuses
- Resource management — Balance resources to develop the city and score points
- resource_management — Balance resources to develop the city and score points
- tile placement — Place colored tiles to build districts with distinct benefits
- tile_placement — Place colored tiles to build districts with distinct benefits
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the latest game to be released to BGA is ginopolis
- three games are now available starting with next station Paris
- Festive Vibes is a 2024 game by Pascal Barnard
- nacho pile is a 2022 game by Ken Groll
- hope you schedule an appointment with us real soon
References (from this video)
- clever action-cards system
- fast-paced for a heavier euro
- solo mode great for solo players
- abstract visuals may not appeal to everyone
- ginkgo trees and urban expansion
- abstract city-building with tile placement
- abstract but atmospheric
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — area control as city expands
- Multi-use cards — play cards for resources or actions
- tile laying — build up city with tiles
- tile placement — build up city with tiles
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- one of my absolute favorite cooperative games of all time
- this is another time travel themed game
- it's a ton of fun
- the solo mode is so quick and simple
- it's just a great worker placement Deck Builder
- the theme really works
References (from this video)
- Urban development with resource management
- City-building in a post-urban forested world
- Strategic, polyomino-like city construction
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we want to play them and share these hot games with you
- we love this community that we're building
- we're going to try to play them too
References (from this video)
- Meaningful card drafting that creates strategic, not trivial, decisions
- Tight integration of drafting, placement, area control, and engine-building
- Strong replayability with simultaneous turns and scalable player counts
- High component quality and a visually appealing, modern aesthetic
- Theme is paper-thin and abstract, which may not appeal to everyone
- Relatively expensive components and setup may deter some players
- Learning curve can be steep for first-time players
- city-building with abstract, tile-based growth and区域 control
- a near-future city being built and redeveloped
- thin theme with a strong emphasis on mechanics over storytelling
- Trois
- Carson City
- Black Angel
- Carnegie
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Controlling buildings/regions grants end-game points and strategic leverage over others.
- card drafting — Players simultaneously select from four cards each turn, shaping actions and the game's engine.
- engine building — Building and card effects provide ongoing bonuses, raising capacity and rewards as the game progresses.
- Engine building / follow-up bonuses — Building and card effects provide ongoing bonuses, raising capacity and rewards as the game progresses.
- tile placement — Tiles are placed or grown on the board by matching surrounding tokens, increasing the city layout.
- Tile placement / expansion — Tiles are placed or grown on the board by matching surrounding tokens, increasing the city layout.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Ginkopolis is quite a strange game where there's quite a few independent mechanisms going on
- it's a very transparent game
- there isn't any kind of trump card you can just whip out and you know take someone by surprise it's quite deterministic
- I love that fact that with a drafting game I think most of them are normally quite breezy quick decisions to be made but with this one they are quite meaningful decisions
- the more you play this game the more you get your head around how it plays out
- this game resonates with me, has a timeless feel
- the game has a great sense of progression and tension over time
References (from this video)
- Elegant and smooth progression with strong card-driven engine.
- Rich integration of tableau with city-building and area control.
- Complexity can be intimidating for new players.
- city-building with layered tableau effects
- futuristic eco city
- ongoing powers and evolving structures
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area/board control — City sections and card interactions provide control and scoring opportunities.
- Resource management — Cards grant resources and continued effects to fuel expansion and expansion-driven scoring.
- tableau building — Players build cards that shape their evolving city tableau and grant ongoing powers.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is one of those games that kind of was an evangelism game for us for a while because it kind of came out and then like seemingly no one ever talked about it.
- It's the epitome of like an elegant game. This game, like we said, has a lot going on, many different mechanics, many different kind of like things going on, but it just works.
- The ramp up effect that you kind of hope to see in these tableau builders where things kind of chain together, and power up each action.
- Ark Nova is obviously a very popular game on Board Game Geek in particular.
- It's just a simple, smooth tableau builder drafting game. It's absolutely outstanding.
References (from this video)
- strong abstract tile placement that stands out among euro games
- deep engine-building potential
- not as accessible as simpler tile-placement games
- not as consistently strong as other top-tier titles
- city-building with vertical and horizontal expansion
- abstract city-building and urban development
- abstract, engine-building oriented
- Glenmore 2
- Citrus
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- engine building — placement provides engine-building bonuses and interplay between horizontal and vertical growth
- engine-building — placement provides engine-building bonuses and interplay between horizontal and vertical growth
- set collection / scoring bonuses — collected tiles grant bonuses and scoring opportunities
- tile drafting — draft city tiles to place and develop a city in multiple directions
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is probably one of my favorite Uwe Rosenberg games I've played to date.
- it's a weird one because it's kind of like a full-size game but didn't quite feel like it
- the rules overhead was quite high in terms of remembering what they do
- usually trying to build these routes and establish these with blocks and then get the cards
- it's a pretty much a paint by numbers deck builder game