We finally got to knock the dust off of Tumble Town and travel back to the Old West for some fun with dice. This thematic board game was designed by Kevin Russ and published by Weird Giraffe Games. Tumble Town is a light weight game, and fun for everyone!
What’s it all about?
It’s election time in Tumble Town and players will compete to be the next Mayor. In order to win, players will need to create the most impressive Main Street by using their dice to construct buildings.
Setup
If you’ve ever setup a game of Splendor, you’ll immediately recognize the marketplace tableau that Tumble Town uses. Three rows of cards are laid out to form the marketplace. There is a deck placed face down on the left of each row, and 4 cards are are placed face up.
Each color of dice is laid out in piles where everyone can reach them.
**Depending on player count, you may need to adjust the number of dice and building cards that you layout.
Each player also receives a Main Street player board and a horse. The backside of your horse card has a secret symbol on it. Players can score extra points by constructing building cards that have the same symbol on them.
**Tumble Town includes 4 variations of the Main Street player boards for greater replayability.
How to play Tumble Town
Each turn consists of 4 phases:
- Players will draft a building card from the marketplace tableau.
- Select your resources (dice) and roll them. You’ll use the card back in the row where you drafted your building card from to determine which resources you can take.
- Construct as many building cards as you want (and are able). Make sure to take advantage of any powers granted when your buildings are complete!
- Any dice leftover must be placed in your storehouse. If you have more than 6 dice, discard down until you do!
To sum it up: Take a card, take and roll dice, build, store dice for next round.
Play continues until there are 2 (or fewer) dice left of 2 different colors. Tally up your victory points using the convenient score pad. Highest total points is the winner!
How to score victory points
Every gold star you see in Tumble Town represents an opportunity to score victory points. As I mentioned earlier, one way to get victory points is to construct buildings that have the same symbol as your horse. Each constructed building is also worth points which is noted in the upper left corner of the card.
The golden building cards (found in the top row of the marketplace tableau) offer a variety of unique scoring opportunities. In the picture above, I built a Hotel that’s worth 5 victory points, and I’ll get 3 extra points for each pair of dice I have in my storehouse at the end of the game! There’s also golden building cards that give you bonus points if you construct buildings with certain types of scenery on them, different types of symbols, and even specific styles of buildings.
Luck
Games with dice typically have an element of luck to them. We found that there are plenty of ways to mitigate a bad dice roll. You start with a horse that allows you to change a die by a value of one. There are also several buildings that allow you to manipulate your dice once you construct them in your town.
If you can’t get the dice combination you need to construct a building, Tumble Town has penalty tokens that you can take for each building requirement that isn’t satisfied. We generally find these to be useful towards the end of a game when resources become scarce.
Gameplay
Tumble Town is a pretty simple game. There’s something really satisfying about constructing all of the buildings out of dice. It’s a game that I can play with my kids, but it also keeps my brain engaged.
As the game rolls along, you’ll find yourself thinking about the many different ways to score those victory points. Should I be drafting the building cards with the symbology that matches my horse? What about the cards that have the highest point value? Should I focus on cards that optimize my Main Street board? What if I can’t get any cards that have the cactus symbol? Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that golden building card so early in the game. Tumble Town can be a thinky little game.
Playtime
I mentioned there’s a lot to consider during each of your turns. I’m not typically prone to analysis paralysis, but I find myself staring at that marketplace tableau for far too long trying to put together the biggest, baddest move I can. I want the building card that matches my horse’s symbol, fits perfectly on Main Street, and satisfies a golden card requirement.
Playtime is listed at 40-60 minutes. If you’ve got players bogged down with AP, I definitely believe games could last this long, or even longer. Our two-player games have typically lasted less than 30 minutes. Every time the game end is triggered there’s always a bit of disappointment. It feels like this game ends before I want it to. I was roughly getting 6 or 7 turns per game, but I wanted to build more!
**There is a surplus variant (for fewer than 4 players) where you don’t return any of the dice to the box during setup. Game end is then triggered when 2 of your marketplace decks are exhausted. I like this variant, and it doesn’t add much time to the game.
Missions
Tumble Town has a special Mission Mode where you can challenge yourself to achieve goals over the course of 10 games. Each mission has a point requirement and some type of construction requirement that must be satisfied before advancing to the next level. I love it when goals like this are included in the rulebook because it gives you a different way to approach the game.
Tumble Town Dice Tower
What a surprise to find a super cool dice tower inside the Tumble Town box! It’s stylized like the Old West, and it even fits perfectly into the box when it’s assembled. But let’s talk about assembly for a second. I couldn’t find a single picture of what the thing was supposed to look like when it was complete. There’s some basic directions on the punchboard, but I’m a visual person. I’m including a picture of the dice tower assembled below in case you need assistance putting yours together!
Conclusion
Tumble Town was an instant hit with our family. There’s enough variability in the game to keep us entertained for quite some time! This is the type of game that draws people to the table. Everyone that sees it in action wants to immediately join the fun and construct their own dice buildings on Main Street!
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