Night Market Board Game Review: Shady Deals & Spicy Strategy!
Transcript
This is not your grandma's farmers market. I am talking smuggled goods. I'm talking shady deals and stalls hawking everything from chicken steak to mystery meat skewers. So, welcome to Night Market, where the real game might be just surviving the health inspector. But anyway, let's break it down. Hey everyone, it's Jonah here at Tantrum House and today we're reviewing Night Market from Talon Strike Studios. Now, this game was designed by Adam Zwain and it is a hand management economic strategy game for one to four players and yeah, it does have a pretty legit solo mode. It's got a board game geek weight of 3.38 out of five. So, I'd call it a midweight euro, a little bit on the higher side with a street food twist.
The games run about 60 to 90 minutes. And let me tell you from experience, the competition in the last couple rounds can get a little spicy. So, let's jump in and talk about the core mechanics that make Night Market what it is. And remember, this is a spatial worker placement game where every decision kind of cascades across the four rounds or the four seasons. So, here's really the nitty-gritty. You've got this worker placement element that has a twist. Here's what I mean. You place workers on districts, which are free, or you can place them on lantern districts, which will cost you dollars if you go to more than one and around. And districts give you basic foods. You've got tofu, chicken steak, bubble tea, and sausage.
But lantern districts unlock power actions, of which there are three. So, one thing you can do is hire chefs, which is a way to pay to deploy permanent workers. You can build stalls, which uh basically it's a way to spend cash to expand your market. Or you can attract customers, which is how you draft new cards from a shared pool. Now, here's where I thought personally that the game really shined. When you place your workers in these districts, if you place them adjacent to each other or in different lines, they trigger combos. So, for example, there's this double combo you can get. When you place a worker one space away from another one of your workers, and that's orthogonally or diagonally, you actually get to gain the good that's between them on the district where you're not. Then, you've got this triple combo. So, if you ever place your workers where there's a line now of three of your workers, you activate all workers in the chain and you get to grab all the resources. And that really makes up your day phase.
You're going to do that in turn order until all of your workers are used. And then comes your night phase. And this is where the customers buy the goods from you, the resources you've collected, but only from specific stall locations. So, if you can't place your collected goods right where the customer is shopping, then you absolutely miss their sweet spot and no cash for you. You also have the ability to create these signature dishes, which require precise goods on colorcoded stalls. And a really important bonus that you can earn each night is the soldout bonus, which you'd get from emptying the market. So, you're collecting the goods, placing the goods in the stall, and then emptying the the market. If you get the soldout bonus, you can do anything from upgrading stalls to jumping on signature tracks.
Uh, a few things that you might care about. Each season or round introduces new lantern districts and new end round goals. So, if you win the goals, you get to claim cool things, attractions they call them, like the claw machine where you get to upgrade stalls for endgame points or delivery trucks where you get free goods each season. Um, but what I thought I thought I should deliver to you is at least some pros of the game. So, let me kind of dive into three of them. First up, the theme. The theme absolutely delivers. The art matches the theme, and I think that's cool. Cards like soup dumplings or beef noodles just feel right. Second, the combination of the worker placements and the ability to have some of your workers permanently stay on the board from one round to the next. That to me is like chef's kiss.
That's one of the coolest parts of the game. And third, it's got enough you took my spot going on uh that it keeps things fun, but it's not really super mean, and I like that. I've also got a few warnings just in case. I've only got two. And one is teaching it. teaching it is going to take patience. New players might gloss over when you're explaining this one. This might not be the game for the first timer. And the second thing is that the game actually is a pretty good size table hog. You're going to need lots of space. I had to get lots of my uh accessories from that I've collected over the the months and years in order to put some of the resources in to play this one. So, who is this game for? If you love games like Istanbul or Century Spice Road, that kind of that mix of efficiency and chaos, then you'll probably dig this. But if you don't like any sort of take that moment, you got my spot, and again, there's not very much in this game. But if you don't like that at all, and I I've played with some people who don't, um, then maybe this game's probably not your style. But I think it's a solid game that you should totally check out if this video made it seem like something that you're into now. All right. If you backed Night Market when it was on its crowdfunding journey or you're excited to play it, I'm asking you to leave me a comment.
Let me know what you liked or didn't like about the game and I'll answer those comments. And if you want more reviews, then just hit subscribe. But regardless, thanks for hanging out and we'll see you next time.