Link City Board Game Review

Regular readers of Geeky Hobbies probably already know that one of my favorite board game genres are cooperative games. While I enjoy a good competitive game, there is something really satisfying about a well designed cooperative game. When I first heard about Link City I was really curious as it is billed as a cooperative city builder. This sounded really interesting and something that I wanted to check out. Link City is a surprisingly fun little cooperative city builder that I think fans of the genre will really enjoy.

In Link City all of the players work together to build a city. Over six rounds the players will place tiles for various locations into their city. One player chooses where in the city the players will build this round. The round’s mayor then chooses which of round’s three tiles that they want to place at each chosen location. The rest of the players then try to match where the mayor wants to place each location. For each location that the players match, they will place the tiles in the chosen area scoring them points at the end of the game. The objective is to score as many points as possible during the game.

For a full breakdown of how to play Link City, check out our rules post.

After playing Link City, it is kind of difficult to come up with a good comparison. That is mostly because it is quite different from any other board game that I have played. In a way it kind of plays like Codenames and other similar game. The players need to work cooperatively and try to figure out what the other players are thinking. Obviously Link City doesn’t rely on word association like Codenames. Instead it is built around creating associations between the different locations. Players need to be on the same wavelength in order to successfully create a well run city.

After reading the rules for the game, I didn’t know what to think about the game. The premise was interesting, but I didn’t know how it would work in action. Link City is a pretty unique game that I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of playing.

One of the reasons I was kind of cautious about Link City is that I was curious how the gameplay would work in action. Just reading the rules it felt like the game would be kind of random. I thought it would just be a game about trying to read the other players. There would be some thought put into thinking about where the other player would place the tile. I still thought it would be pretty random. In some ways the game is built around trying to guess what the other players are thinking. Sometimes you have a very good idea of where the mayor will place a tile. You can never be 100% sure though. The other player could be using a completely different rational for their decision.

As you play Link City though, you start to figure out that there is more to the game that your initial thoughts. Link City will never be confused for a game filled with tons of strategy. You start to realize though, that there is logic to how you build your city in order to increase your score. Lets take a look at the first city my group ended up creating.

Our four beginning tiles were pretty random and didn’t have that much in common. As we started to build out the city though, we started to naturally build different sections of the city with their own unique emphasis. In the bottom right corner we built a community area with the church, synagogue, and school. In the bottom left corner we built a more downtown business-centric area. We created a small transportation hub. Finally we had a young family, health conscious side of town along the top. When we first started building the town we didn’t really have a plan in place. These areas just naturally developed. If you end up building these type of sections in your city it becomes quite a bit easier to have a general idea of where to place each new tile.

I think this highlights one of the strengths of Link City. While sections of the city may not make a lot of sense, the game does a surprisingly good job of simulating planning out a city with a group of other players. When you look at completed city, you can think of little stories about how the city ended up the way it did.

While the game may seem kind of random (at times it is), there is more strategy to the game than you would initially think. Using logic when deciding where to place each tile makes future rounds quite a bit easier. Building up distinct districts really helps. There is more strategy to the game than that though. Sometimes it is obvious where you should place a cone. If there is a area where you can connect to two, three, or even four different tiles; you should place a cone there. These sections are where you score a lot of points.

If you miss placing a tile in one of these areas, you should try again in a future round. Outside of these obvious areas where you should place tiles, you should spread out your cones throughout the city. If you put all of the cones in the same area, the logic that applies to one cone also applies to the other nearby cone. This makes it much harder to figure out where the mayor will place each tile.

In order to get a good score in Link City it is crucial that you get a perfect round as quickly as possible. Your first perfect round gets you a fourth cone which ends up adding more tiles to your city. Even it this makes if harder to make future matches as you have more options to choose from, it is crucial to get more tiles out onto the board. You need as many tiles as possible in order to give yourself more scoring opportunities.

The clue giving aspect of Link City doesn’t share a lot in common with Codenames. Yet for some reason while playing Link City, it kind of felt like playing Codenames where instead of words you used locations and their associations. One of the most satisfying elements of Codenames is when you come up with the perfect clue that gets your teammate to correctly guess several words. While it is not quite the same, Link City has a similar feeling when you get a perfect round especially in rounds with four tiles.

One of Link City’s other greatest strengths is its simplicity. The game has more complexity than you would think as I detailed above. The game is really simple to pick up and play though. You can teach the game in minutes. Anyone should be able to quickly pick up the game and know what they are doing. It takes a little while to figure out the best locations to place cones to maximize your score. Outside of maximizing your score though, Link City is the perfect game to play with people that don’t typically play a lot of board games.

I enjoyed Link City quite a bit. There are a couple things that I wish were a little better though.

First the game does rely on quite a bit more luck than I would have liked. This mostly comes from what tiles you end up randomly drawing for the round. Since the deputy mayor has no idea what tiles were drawn this round, they are kind of guessing where they should place the cones. They may place a cone hoping for a specific type of location, and then none of those tiles are drawn. Some of the tiles are very specific and kind of weird to place in a city. In a round you may end up getting a bunch of tiles that don’t work with the rest of your city. On the other end of the spectrum you could get a bunch of tiles that are pretty interchangeable. This makes it hard to figure out where the mayor wanted each of them placed.

This never becomes a huge issue as Link City is not the type of game that you should take too seriously. Therefore it isn’t that big of an issue that it relies on luck at times. Luck could lead to a lower score. While it is nice to do well in the game, it is not the type of game where your score is the only thing that matters. It is fun just trying to develop your city. It can genuinely be kind of funny how your city turns out. Most of the locations are pretty normal. There are some really weird locations as well such as an alien abduction site. Thematically it makes no sense why you can choose where the aliens abducted people in your city. It is pretty funny thinking about a city planner deciding where in the city to place the alien abduction site.

The other main issue with Link City is that it is sometimes hard to figure out what strategy to implement. It becomes a little more evident as you play the game more. Early in a game though, it kind of feels like you are randomly placing tiles. The first two deputy mayors don’t have a lot of information about where to place the cones as they don’t know how the city is going to develop. Later on it becomes a little easier as different sections of your city start to develop. Link City is never going to be confused for really strategic game. I wish the game had a little more strategy in areas. It just doesn’t reach the level of Codenames where you can give that perfect clue that really helps out your team.

I was a little hesitant about Link City before playing it as I didn’t know how it would play in action. I genuinely enjoyed my time with the game. The game is really easy to pick up and play. It isn’t a super strategic game, but there are interesting decisions to make. It is fun making your own little city with the other players. Figuring out where the other players would like to place various locations is an interesting mechanic that works better than I was expecting. It is quite satisfying building out your city, even when you don’t score a ton of points.

If you are looking for a really strategic game, or don’t really like cooperative games; Link City may not be for you. If the premise intrigues you at all though and you are a fan of cooperative games, I think you will really enjoy Link City and you should consider picking it up.