Balconia

We've previously featured other games where players are building a tableau representing a neighbourhood of houses and apartments that score for the features that are present in the tableau as a whole or in particular rows or columns; for example, Walking in Burano (EmperorS4/AEG) and the beachfront builder Santa Monica (AEG). Balconia, from Red Cat and Ares Games, is a similarly themed set collection game but Paul Schulz's three-dimensional design makes clever use of the 'I split, you choose' mechanism.

In Balconia, a 5 x 5 vertical grid stands between the two players. It represents an apartment block. An entrance cube is placed at the bottom showing a green door on one side of the grid and a pink door on the other as well as a scoring condition that will apply to the whole block; for example, having more bird symbols than music. That tho' will be just one of several scoring objectives because each turn you'll be adding a block to the grid that will add scoring conditions and will give you icons that count towards meeting them.

On your turn, you draw a face-down token that will have the number 1-22. You then take the corresponding number cube and choose which pair of adjacent sides to offer to your opponent. You'll obviously end up with one of the two opposite sides but which one, and where it goes in the grid, will depend on the choice made by your opponent. The rules offer flexibility over whether you play so that the player who places a block can position it anywhere or whether it has to be adjacent to an existing block. And your opponent isn't choosing blind because tho' they have to choose one of the two sides offered to them they can certainly look to see what's on their reverse sides. Players can't look at the other side of the grid, however, so tho' both players have pretty much perfect information they would need a very good memory to keep track of exactly what is in their opponent's grid and where.

There are quite a few different icons to collect or match up. For example, any lovelorn character will need to be matched up with a lovebird facing towards them, tho' not necessarily at the same level in the apartment block. There's set collection scoring for cats, flowers and laundry, with some rows or columns scoring for the absence of particular icons. The thematic elements are strong; so, for example, astronomers with telescopes don't want sunblinds on the floor above them where they might impede their view of the sky, and characters who are trying to sleep don't want to be disturbed by singing or other noise from neighbouring apartments. It all makes sense and adds to the charm of a game that can be a quite challenging puzzler, even tho' each turn you really only have a relatively simple choice to make.

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