Bunny Kingdom Town

• Designer: Richard Garfield
• Publisher: iello
• Players: 2
• Age: 10
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://link.amazon/B0eqsbmxY
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Become the leader of one of the two most powerful families in the royal court as you compete to build a new city and nurture it to greatness. In doing so, you will be awarded prestigious “golden carrots”, a sure way to outclass your rival.  In Bunny Kingdom Town, you purchase buildings that best suit your strategy and place them in the best locations to grow your districts and earn more golden carrots…unless, of course, you instead choose the exact location your opponent had their eye on in order to thwart their expansion plans. The town’s inhabitants will send you their requests, which will guide you in your construction choices and can bring you, yes, more golden carrots.

To set up, place the board on the table and put a wood token on the indicated spaces.  The building tiles are shuffled and 20 tiles are chosen at random.  The 30 Request cards are also shuffled and placed in a deck. Choose a Setup card and then find the 5 plot cards specified on it and place them in the market as shown.

Also take a white Architect and place them on the corresponding plot spaces on the board.  Also place Bridge tokens as shown on the setup card.  Shuffle the Upgrade tokens and reveal them one at a time until there is a cumulative cost of 8 carrots on them.  Players choose a color, take all the bunnies of that color and get 3 coins from the supply.

The game is played over 4 rounds.  To start each round, players get 2 coins from the supply and then 5 Building tiles are revealed and placed in the display.  Each player gets 2 Request cards and then chooses one to keep and discards the other one.

On a turn, the active player must take the Plan action – which is choosing one of the available tiles from the display and putting it face up in front of him.  Then, optionally, the player can Build by choosing an available Plot card from the market, paying the Coin cost shown underneath it, and then placing one of their Building tiles onto that space on the board.  If you place on a space with a Wood token on it, collect that token.  Note that some buildings are noted with a Waterfront icon – these can only be built on spaces with a Waterfront icon on them.  Place one of your bunnies on the tile you built to show ownership.

Now, you activate the neighborhood you built in – that is the orthogonally connected group of buildings with your bunnies on it.  Tiles can have a lightning effect which means they trigger one time on the turn they are built.  Star effects are recurrent and used for scoring – you will multiply the number of stars generated by your tiles by the number of different building types in that neighborhood.  Mark the score on the score track.  Note that some tiles have conditional star generating effects. 

You can build multiple buildings in a single turn, but each additional building costs an extra coin when purchasing the Plot card.

After building, a player can optionally buy an Upgrade tile by paying its cost in wood.  Some Upgrades have a one-time effect while others have ongoing bonuses.   Then, to end the turn, slide all the Plot cards to the right (if any were purchased) and draw new cards to fill in from the left.  The next player then goes.

The round ends if the row of Building tiles is empty.  Repeat this process four times.  As there are 5 tiles in each Round, the starting player of each round will naturally alternate.

At the end of the fourth round, players then reveal their Request cards and all the scoring for those to the track.  The player with the most points wins! Ties broken in favor of having the most coins left over.

My thoughts on the game

So in the past few years, there has been an explosion of 2p versions of classic games. I’m not sure what the reason is for this – but it’s definitely a trend that shows no sign of slowing down.  Most of these new 2p games are favorites of mine:  Splendor, Azul, 7 Wonders, Fjords, etc.  Interestingly, I missed the original Bunny Kingdom back in 2017, so this was a wonderful introduction to the game system.

Players vie to select tiles as well as board spaces to place upon – trying to create neighborhoods of varying building types.  Players may also be motivated for certain arrangements due to their end-game scoring cards.   Though each player only gets ten turns in the game, each of those is filled with decisions on what is best to do.

To some degree, you have to work with the tiles that are available to you. Each round only reveals 5 tiles, and players may have to make some speculative decisions in the earlier rounds – as you simply don’t know what is coming up next!  The game allows you to hold onto tiles and build them later – though there is a slight increase in cost for turns where you build multiple buildings.

Players may also want to wait to build as there are only 5 Plot cards available at any time – and it may be beneficial to stall and wait for “better” locations to come available on the board.

If you are able to get a large neighborhood built, it is not uncommon to score 20 or more points each time you activate it.  This is obviously a strong strategy.  If you are able to collect extra Request cards, those can also pay off nicely, with some being worth 15 points or more.  What I like about this game is that you really can’t plan on a particular strategy until you see what tiles are available, what board spaces are available and what Request cards you have in your hand.  My strategy in every game is a tactical decision – and I love the way I’m forced to consider all the options each game.

The game plays relatively quickly – again, each player only has 10 turns.  Bunny Kingdom Town is a nice tight 2p duel with lots to think about.  Each game requires a fresh look at strategy as a result of the combination of tiles available, board position and Upgrade tiles on offer.  I am really loving this one, and it’s making me want to try the original now!

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Steph – Better than the original!

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Steph H
• I like it.
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://link.amazon/B0eqsbmxY