Big City

Big City is a city builder you can finish before dinner, with chunky plastic buildings that look great on the table. You collect cards from eight different neighborhoods and use them to place buildings one, two or three spaces large. Every building scores a base value plus bonuses from the buildings around it, so placement is the whole puzzle. The twist is the city hall: until somebody builds it, which earns that player no points, nobody can place anything fancier than simple homes and shops. That creates a lovely little standoff over who blinks first. A 1999 design that rewards tidy planning and a little patience, best at three players.