Who doesn’t love a trip to the farmers market? The fresh fruits and vegetables, the flowers and dairy products all lined up for all of us to pick from just really screams that summer is here. What if we could play a game where the farmers market comes to our table and we learn how to best manage these orders? Well today look no further as we explore one together!
Downtown Farmers Market is published by Blue Orange Games and is for 2-4 players. It plays in approximately 20 mins and is a small box game approximately the size of two hardback books.
Overview:
In Downtown Farmers Market plays are attempting to fill a grid with food tiles obtained from the market in efficent ways to score the most points from the challenges in front of you.
Gameplay:
The game consists of players each taking 4 challege tiles in 2 rounds of picking, deciding which side to use for each tile and creating a row of four from the first picks and a column of four from second picks. This will create challenges for each spot that intersect in a specific location for a food tile to be placed. Return unused Challenge tiles to the box.
At the beginning of the game players will start with the open grid in front of them and a first plsyer token for the lead player. The first player picks a food tile and then discards one of them from the game. The next players pick based on player count but basically the picks end up so that there will be one tile left in the center for the next round. The player who last picked a token will pick first in the next round. This continues until all tiles have been used/discarded and each layer has a full grid of 16 tiles.
The tiles when drawn are immediately placed in any open space at one of the 16 intersections of the challenge tiles. This will repeat for 16 rounds untill all players have a full grid of tiles. The game then ends and each row and each column is scored individually based on the criteria of the challenge. The player with the most points as the end is the winner!
Impressions:
Like a great plate of fresh food from a real Farmer’s Market, this game will get to your table fast and easy. I sat down to read the rules for this and was ready to play in about 3 minutes. The rules are well-written and very easy to understand. You will find this one to be a great game for newer players or ones who don’t like to listen to a lot of rules with a title.
Let’s talk about the design and art here. It is simple and has a clipart look to it. It isn’t detailed but it also doesn’t pop in a cartoon-style that I think would have really been an upgrade for it. It’s servicable but it isn’t going to be the reason you buy this game.
Gameplay is simple-you draw a tile and place it in your grid space and see where it lines up on the row and column scoring at the end of the game. All of the scoring criteria are easy to understand-sometimes you want exact numbers or sets, some or none of something or you get points for one of each of a food item. The game isn’t hard to understand and infact if you really wanted to you could no-brain this one and just place a tile and hope for the best, but you won’t do well. This game requires you to really think ahead on your tile placements to get the optimal points for each scoring system and if you don’t plan it out you will definitely not do well!
If you enjoy games like Calico or Cascadia this game is likely to be one you will also enjoy. The same think ahead/plan ahead tile placement mechanic is present here but in a less involved, quicker gameplay that is a much more accessible game. Accessible to newer/younger players and to time-this game is a great 15-20 min play for that after-dinner or end the night type of game. I personally love games like this because it fits into a space I am likely to get my teenagers to agree to play and that can make a big difference!
Final Thoughts:
Overall Downtown Farmer’s Market is a game that will see a lot of play on our table and be a welcome addition to our quick-to-learn an quick-to-play library. As both a family and new gamer friendly title I would expect this to be a great piece to any collection out there and one you will find both challenging and fun to play! Make sure to check out this title and bring a little piece of the farmers market to your home today!
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