Game Review: Danger City
By W. Eric Martin
December 12, 2007
Publisher: Isimat
Designers: Laurent & Nadege Morelle
Players: 3-8
Ages: 8
Playing Time: 20 minutes
Rules Language: French, English & German (with Italian online)
Version: Production copy
Times Played: Seven (twice each with 3 & 4 players, thrice with 5)
One of the reasons I enjoy playing games is to see how the rules interact with the players interpreting them. Every set of game rules brings a new puzzle, a new system of interlocking bits and moving parts, and if you pay attention, you can exploit game situations and crush your opponents. (That part is also fun.)
Given this outlook, I have a high tolerance for games with hidden depth, that is games in which possible strategies are overlooked by other players or are apparently non-existent, a situation. Some players look at simple games like Coloretto and Qwirkle and find them obvious and uninteresting. All the choices are obvious, they say, and these games amount to nothing more than people moving bits around for twenty minutes. Either I’m more observent than others or I’m delusional, but in almost every game that I play, I can see possibilities for strategic play or—when I’m sliding into the loser pit—situations that I should avoid in future games to improve my chances of winning.
Thus I gave Danger City a lot of chances to prove itself. On a first reading of the rules, I thought, “Is that it?” but having seen others make that same mistake, I pressed on. After a few games with five players, I realized that something of interest might be hidden inside the simple-looking box with amateur graphics.
Then I played it some more, and those thoughts started to recede.
Then I played games six and seven and decided that the game might indeed be little more than an exercise in drawing, playing, and passing cards for twenty minutes. A pleasant exercise, mind you, but one I’d rarely choose given other options.
Red Herring
In Danger City, players are building a neighborhood by playing cards that show various buildings, occupations, and security systems. (Why people would choose to move to Danger City in the first place I’m at a loss to explain.) Alternatively, players can side with the crooks and try to overwhelm the neighborhood’s defenses. To represent these possibilities, players start with a hand of seven cards from a deck that contains burglars, houses, and other buildings. The rules throw the reader a red herring by detailing every type of building card—1 Street lighting card on a yellow background; 14 Green Space cards on a green background: 5 cycle lanes, 5 picnic areas, 4 woods; 6 Healthcare cards on a white background: 2 pharmacies, 2 doctors, 2 dentists; etc.—but these details are meaningless because all that matters is the number of points on each building card. And as you’ll see, sometimes even these numbers are meaningless, too.
On a turn, you either draw a card from the deck or you play a non-burglar card from your hand onto the table. When you play your third house (each worth 3 points), you can claim a terrace worth 20 points. In addition, one time during the game, you can reveal three burglars in your hand and claim a safe worth 20 points. To end your turn, you pass a card from your hand face-down to the player on your left.
Play ends one of two ways: (1) If a player starts his turn with five burglars in hand, he can reveal them to immediately win; or (2) When a set number of houses has been played (6-16 depending on the number of players), the player who played the final house discards a card, then players compare the number of burglars each has in hand; the player with the fewest burglars wins, and in the event of a tie, the tied player with the most points wins.
So the game sets up a simple choice—collect burglars to shoot for the insta-win, or pass them on to others and try to rack up points—but in practice Danger City feels tedious and not tense. Frequently, the same low-valued building is passed from hand to hand for multiple rounds, and when someone does hand off a burglar, it often circles the table, leaving the original holder in the same position as his previous turn.
Who’s Burgling Who?
The tension that should be present—houses vs. burglars—isn’t there, perhaps due to the size of the deck and the number of burglars present (9 of 73 cards in a three-player game rising to 12 of 96 cards with eight players). The chances of you drawing into or being passed five burglars is slim; more importantly, it’s largely out of your control. Sure, you can try to draw into them, but your hand size is limited to ten cards, so you’ll bump against that ceiling quickly, which forces you to play cards to make space, while everyone else is laying down houses and high-valued cards on their way to the other victory condition.
In the end, I might just be the wrong market for the game, despite my openness to almost anything. While the gamers who tried Danger City screwed up their nose at it, the casual game players liked it and said they’d be willing to play again. Maybe if I keep digging that depth will finally turn up…
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Dec 12, 2007 at 01:30 AM in Game Reviews, In-Depth Reviews / 982
Comments:
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> Then I played it some more, and those thoughts started to recede. It didn’t take me nearly as long, Eric, but you ARE a bit more patient with such things. :) Posted by Dave Bean on Dec 13, 2007 at 02:10 PM | #
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Shoot I totally thought this was the White Wolf Murder City game when I read it. I just realized that this is Danger City and completely different. Posted by Lee Fisher on Dec 13, 2007 at 04:53 PM | #
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Hello Everybody,
I am the author of Danger City.
First, Danger City is meant to be what call in France « un jeu aperitif », which means a game that is quick to learn and explain, that you will play when having a drink with friends, generally before lunch or dinner, that is when you want to play a quick and nice game with “regular” players, family players. Danger City does not have the pretention to be a strategic deep game for addicted gamers (Mission Scorpio or Jet Set Casino from the same authors are a lot more in that field) but to be tricky enough and short enough to have a good time and to make you want to play again.
Concerning this point Danger City is a success: each time I saw people playing Danger City they wanted to play another, and they generally can because the game is plaid in 15 minutes: players would feel they could have won and would like to understand how the winner had won and how far they were from the win.
Another important point, which somehow is in relation with the one just mentioned in certain game situations, is that if you “play burglars” you can at anytime decide to switch your strategy towards “playing houses” by showing 3 burglars, thanks to the safe card you win.
I also would like to make a comment on the following sentence from Red Herring: “Frequently, the same low-valued building is passed from hand to hand for multiple rounds, and when someone does hand off a burglar, it often circles the table, leaving the original holder in the same position as his previous turn.”
To my opinion, supported by many other players, even though the same cards are circling 60% of the time, thanks to its tactical interest the “pass away mechanism” is key and is one of the great pleasure of the game. I must admit one thing: although Danger City is not a complicated game to play, it takes several games to realize all it can offer, all the possibilities it holds and how you can interfere with the game. In that sense it is not a game for consumption with instant and obvious results: you must play to learn how to play it. However, it takes only a few games to reach this pleasure. As a witness, I must mention the case of this German family (a couple with 3 kids) who bought the game and then wrote to me: after 2 games they had not understood the interest of the game and asked me some questions about it. Believe it or not, but they wrote to me again to inform me that for more than a month they have been playing every day, and the kids want to play the game with their parents before going to school and when they come back! Danger City is a game that’s worth discovering and playing: you invest not in the rules learning, but in the play! Ok, that’s only my opinion and experience. I wish you will be able to play it more so to realize the same as I did. But then, it is also a matter of taste. Your further comments are welcome if you wish to add some to mine, it will be a pleasure. Thanks to you all again, and have a good last week of 2007.
Best regards from the Alps mountains.
Posted by Laurent Morelle on Dec 27, 2007 at 07:13 AM | #
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