Suburbia: Inc.
Designed by Ted Alspach
Published by Bezier Games - 2013
Review by Jack Eddy
What’s New: Bonuses, Challenges, and Borders! Awesome, jaggedy borders!. One bonus and one challenge tile are drawn randomly at the start of the game and placed face up on stacks B and C. Players fulfilling the bonus or challenge when those stacks are available are given rewards. Borders are like super-tiles that function like any other city tile, but you can only build off their interior jaggedy edge, meaning that your city will begin taking strange, OCD defying shapes. Oh yeah, you also get some extra scoring objective circular token thingys, and really interesting city tiles to add some variety to the base set.
Why it’s so good: The bonuses and challenges are an elegant little twist that gives everyone a clear mini objective to follow, or not follow, as they so choose. It nudges them in a direction and helps add value to different city tiles each game.And the borders. Oh boy, the borders. These puppies are what give your city life and character, it tells the story of what your city is, and how it came to be. Not only will it make your burrough thematically different, your city shape will change to become unique and unlike anyone else’s. Overall the expansion just adds so many cool options that are intuitive and consistent with the rules and spirit of the base game; which is amazing because it does that while ALSO enhancing the thematic imagery of expansive, sprawling, unique cities. Now that I own Inc., I can't imagine playing Suburbia without it.