My Perfect City uses familiar ideas to challenge us

My Perfect City from Dr. Finn’s Book of Solitaire Strategy and Word Games is an example of drawing a map on a grid. Between published Roll and Writes and design contests, I feel like I have seen dozens of games that could be described that way.

However, I also remember when I first saw Welcome to Dino World back in 2017, I felt like someone had handed me Carcassonne on a sheet of paper. That was when I really realized that the medium of Roll and Write could be so much more than different flavors of Yahtzee.

So, what does My Perfect City do to make it stand out and make it worth playing?

You are filling in a six by six grid with five different symbols/city areas (which are government buildings, banks, parks, houses and apartments, by the way) They each have their own scoring conditions and any empty spaces at the end of the game are negative points.

Okay, that’s all pretty boilerplate. So what did Steve Finn do to make My Perfect City interesting?

What I have normally seen is a symbol assigned to a die pip. In My Perfect City, each pip has three sets of symbols in specific shapes, made of one to four squares, each unit called a tile. (If that sounds confusing, it automatically makes sense when you see it)

The first placement has to touch the edge of the grid. Every placement after that has to touch a previously placed tile. And you are not allowed to flip or rotate the tiles, except through one-shot powers. There are three one-shot powers, letting you flip a tile horizontally, vertically or remove a square.

You cross off a tile when you use it. If you have crossed off every shape in a pip, you can pick any remaining tile when you roll that number. When no more tiles will fit, the game ends and you figure out your score.

So. What makes My Perfect City stand out, what makes it work? I’m going to say the variety of different tiles. 

It’s definitely an example of limitations and restrictions creating tough choices and tension. The board becomes claustrophobic. While there are eighteen tiles, the total number of squares in those eighteen is greater than the board. You can’t use every one.

That makes My Perfect City less granular. You don’t slowly fill up the board, square by square. Each move dynamically changes the board. You don’t have as many moves as you would if every tile was only one square but that means the decisions are bigger.

And that does make My Perfect City enjoyable and worth playing. The elements may be familiar but they are crafted into a thoughtful, engaging experience.