Prototype | West Story
Designer: Piotr Dachtera
Artist: Tomasz Bolik
Publisher: Smart Flamingo
Story behind the scenes
In West Story: A Town Building Game, you take on the role of a Wild West town builder, striving to create the most prosperous settlement on the frontier. You will purchase cards to enhance your player board, improving your available actions and also accumulating victory points. Get ready to establish your presence in the Wild West, where careful planning and a bit of luck will determine who becomes the most legendary town builder of all!
Prototype thoughts
We are huge fans of the Old West theme. Last year at Spiel Essen, Smart Flamingo’s demo booth immediately caught our eye with its West Story: A Town Building Game banner.
Each round, two dice are rolled to determine the actions all players will take on their personal boards. Initially, all players have identical actions, but as the game progresses, you will modify your board by adding or replacing cards. These cards may represent resources, buildings, actions, and other items that you will use throughout the game.
Something we particularly appreciate, besides the ever-changing personal board, is the action availability system. As you use actions, they become temporarily unavailable, encouraging forward planning and adaptation based on the dice rolls. We find that it's also a nice touch that once all action spaces in a row of your board are used, the entire row resets and becomes available again.
As you accumulate victory points, you will have chances to interact with neighboring towns on the main board. These interactions can lead to beneficial trades or challenging encounters with villains. Be prepared — your plans may go awry if you are defeated by these guys.
The game culminates in a race to assemble the most valuable collection of buildings, animals, and scoring symbols. To win, you must balance town development, effectively manage resources, and evolve your strategic planning from round to round.
We have played it mostly at 2 players, but we have also enjoyed the game at 4 players, and both player counts offered great experiences. Playing this prototype for the first time (and subsequent plays) was a joy, as it met all our expectations. West Story is our kind of game and deserves a place in the collection.
Prototype ratings
Global rating: 8.15/10
Gameplay & Mechanisms: 8.25/10
Quality & Components: 7.5/10
Rules & Rulebook: 8/10
Art & Illustrations: 8.75/10
Theme & Story: 8.25/10
Final notes
A special thanks to Smart Flamingo for providing us with a prototype copy of West Story: A Town Building Game.
If you don't want to miss their crowdfunding campaign, you can follow their page on Gamefound. The campaign is set to launch on September 26th 2024.
