Sunrise Lane

• Designer: Reiner Knizia
• Publisher: Horrible Guild
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 45 minutes
• Played with copy provided by publisher

In Sunrise Lane, players take on the role of construction companies attempting to build up a residential neighborhood, and to do this, they need to pick prestigious plots of land on which to build houses and town structures.

In more detail, the game board depicts a grid of spaces that each show 1-5 dots in a single color, and each player has a set of colored House pieces, with the colors having no connection to the space on the board. On a turn, you either draw 2 colored cards from the deck and add them to your hand (with a limit of 5 cards in hand) or discard cards to place buildings, then draw a card.

When you build, you must build adjacent to a pre-existing structure (or the central space at the start of the game), and you must discard 1 or more cards of the same color as the dots in the space on which you want to build. You can discard 1-5 cards, after which you place 1-5 of your House pieces on this space, then score points equal to the number of dots on the space multiplied by the number of House pieces you placed. You can build multiple buildings on a turn as long as you build your next one adjacent to the last one you built.

When a player has 2 or fewer House pieces in their supply, the game ends, then players score endgame points, with two of the districts awarding points for the highest buildings and the other two for the most buildings. Additionally, points go to the player with the longest group of adjacent buildings.

Place the board (which shows a town with an intersecting maze of paths, on the table and each player takes the house pieces in their color.  The deck of cards is shuffled and each player gets a starting hand of 3 cards.

Play is done around the board with each player taking a turn in which one of two actions is taken:

A] Draw Cards – Draw 2 cards. If you have more than 5, discard down to 5.

B] Build things – choose an empty space that is either adjacent to the center space on the board or adjacent to any previously built upon space.  Then you can build as many Houses as you like and/ or a single Park.   To build a House, play cards from your hand that match the color of the space.  For each card played, place a house of your color on the space.  There is a max height of 5 floors (as your hand can only hold 5 at any time).   Multiply the number of houses played by the number of pips on that space to get your score for the turn.  To build a Park, simply discard any card from your hand and place a Park down. You do not score anything for a Park.  You can build as many houses as you like on your turn so long as you have the cards to pay for them.  You can only build a single Park on your turn.

Play continues around the table until the end of a round when someone has 2 or fewer Houses left in their supply.   The game can also end if there are no empty spaces left in the four bonus areas (nearly the entire board).  

At the end of the game, score the different bonus areas:

A (blue 5×5 areas in upper left and lower right) – 10/6/3 for players with the most 5-floor houses in those regions.  If tied, move to 4-floor houses, then 3 floor houses, then 2 floor houses. Score each blue region separately.

B (red 5×5 areas in upper right and lower left) – 10/6/3 for players with the most houses (regardless of height).

C (whole board): 10/6/3 for players with longest connected group of houses in their color

In all cases, if there is a tie, things are super friendly- tied players share the position, score the full value, and the next player gets the next position.

The player with the most points wins, ties broken in favor of the player with the most cards remaining.

My thoughts on the game

Well, if you didn’t already know – this is a re-imagining of Rondo, a 2013 release which didn’t get a lot of buzz back then – of course, we still reviewed it here:  https://opinionatedgamers.com/2013/10/07/liga-rondo-review/

Sunrise Lane lets you revisit this great abstract game with a few changes.  First, the end game scoring now has a few bonuses, and I feel this is an improvement.  Now, near the end of the game, you have reason to play houses in varied areas on the board – not just looking for the highest pipped spaces…  It also gives more use to the colors which only have low valued spaces left – as those low valued spaces could still turn out to have some scoring potential.

The map appears to be the same as the Red side of the board in Rondo, and as Liga noticed ten years ago: “The spaces are organized in two main circles connected by four roads. The game will start from the center of the map. In the inner circle the most valuable spaces have a 3 on it. In the outside circle there are the precious 4s and 5s.“ 

The map arrangement allows for the game to gradually build up as the scores don’t really ramp up until you reach that outer ring; though again you can be setting up bonus scoring options with the houses in the early part.  You will continually be fighting the urge to make quick placements to either snatch up a good space or perhaps to block an opponent from something versus saving cards in your hand to set up a huge multiplier on a 4 or 5.  As you don’t get to see what anyone is drawing, you sometimes have to make your best guess on whether to block or not.

I have played with a number of players who did not like the substitution of cards/houses here for the discs in the original game.  However, the change is good for two reasons.  First, placing player houses allows for the end game bonuses to be scored.  Second, there is a bit more turnover in the colors (as you shuffle the discards into a new deck as needed) which prevents a color from running out or from having your hand be mucked up with colors you don’t want.  For me, the change is fine.

Sunrise Lane is a super easy game and it tends to take much less than the 45 minutes listed on the box.  We’re getting through games in 30ish minutes, as many turns are rapid fire.  Players are often simply drawing cards or they already have a pre-planned set of moves lined up, they just drop those cards and plunk down houses/parks rapidly.  I really liked the original and I’m glad to have found another version of the game to replace the one I let get away many years ago.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Joe Huber (1 play): I am not a big fan of abstract games, so it’s not surprising that Sunrise Lane didn’t set my heart a flutter.  It’s a fine game – I never played Rondo, but given that pieces I understand are different, a clear improvement on the original – and I enjoyed my play.  I just – as is typical for abstract games – felt no push to play a second time.

Dan B. (2 plays): I owned Rondo but, while it was fine, I did not think it was worth keeping. Sunrise Lane definitely improves on Rondo by adding the end-game scoring. However, it loses points for the atrocious graphic design which makes it very hard to tell which spaces are which color. I don’t think it would quite make it to a “like” rating for me anyway, but the difficulty in actually playing the game means it definitely won’t.

Jim B. (1 play): Another entry in the seemingly infinite stack of serviceable Knizia games. I can appreciate the updated coat of paint but it’s worth noting that the readability of the spaces will be a struggle here for some. This seems like a fairly egregious error given their importance to the very limited strategic choices available on your turn. I don’t see myself reaching for this one again given how many more interesting games there are to play from just Knizia alone.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale, John P, Mark Jackson
• Neutral. Joe H., Dan B., Jim B
• Not for me…