Happy City
Review

Happy City (2021) is a city building collecting card game where you buy buildings to attract Residents and increase their Happiness. You do this by purchasing cards that generate short-term Coins as well as add those long-term benefits. As you race to build the best city, you have to balance having enough money to improve things with new cards with getting the best cards you need to outrank your opponent's metropolis.

Each turn you receive Coins from your current Building and Resident cards. You then either reveal three Building cards and purchase any you can afford, or opt to purchase Resident cards. In this way, you work towards higher-scoring cities that have both more Residents and more Happiness from buildings. Some buildings, like factories, may offer Coin income, but take away Happiness. Other buildings, like cathedrals, don't offer a Coin income but do increase Happiness.

The result is a race to get 10 buildings in your city because then the scores are tallied: Residents multiplied by Happiness. But you need to balance the growth of your city with the quality of buildings (that offer the most Residents and Happiness). There are also special Bonus Building cards you can claim if you have certain colour combinations of cards.

Happy City includes rules for two ways to play: a family version and an expert version that adds Expert Bonus Building cards. These give you special abilities that not only boost your score but can impinge on other players. Double your income with the Concert Arena, or Stonehenge where you get an extra Resident for every blue building your neighbouring players have.

The result is a simple-to-grasp city-building game where you have to balance short-term gain against long-term benefits.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Happy City 19 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 months ago.