HOOK: Poker meets worker-placement
DESCRIPTION: The West is growing day by day, and you’re looking to stake your claim. To win, you have to gamble your relationships with the most powerful bosses in town to win influence. This influence comes in many forms: Law, Money and Force. If you’re clever enough, you’ll be able to take claim over the buildings in the evergrowing boomtowns and gain powerful abilities. At the end of the day, the boss who has the best combination of wit and bluff will become the most powerful tycoon in the Wild Wild West.
GAMEPLAY: The game is played in a series of rounds. Each round, poker cards are dealt between the locations, which are laid out in a circle. Players place posse members on these location cards, which will both give an action and count as a bid for the location's valuable resources. Players also get a poker card of their own which uses the two adjacent cards from a location to form a three-card hand. This creates a clever mix of modern worker placement and poker that drives the game. In addition, players must manage their resources of Law, Money and Force to buy buildings and gunfight. If you have the highest stake in the most lucrative industry at the end, you will be rewarded bonus points. Add these points to the points you've collected from buying buildings and determine the winner! Yippie kay yay a!
For a deluxe edition of this game, see Tiny Epic Western: Deluxe Edition
- Unique poker-hand mechanic adds tension and bluffing
- Distinct western-town vibe with solid design
- Divisive among players; balance depends on luck
- Not as piratey or thematic as some expect
- Worker placement with a poker-hand mechanic
- Western town-building with cowboys
- Strategic, market-style play with luck elements
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- poker-hand secret card — Hidden cards influence outcomes and scoring; luck and deduction interplay.
- scoring track based on symbols — Points accrue via symbols on buildings and board progression.
- worker placement — Place workers to take actions across six buildings.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "I found it a bit tricky because it went a bit quick my people got killed off too fast before I really got a sense of how to use them"
- "there are a bunch of cool options with the characters and I did find them interesting"
- "it's a 4X game all in a small box"
- "the expansion apparently it adds a ton of this a ton a ton more to this game"
- "two-player viability with added pieces"
- "two-player play works surprisingly well"
- "the follow mechanic ... keeps you invested every turn"
- "Man the box fits the minis in that box... tardis-like"
- "this is a Zelda vibe... Zelda e as you can get"
- "the divisive part comes from this poker hand mechanic"
- "the bullet dice are pretty cool"
- "it's the best one"