Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Suburbia Collectors Edition Coming to Kickstarter on January 14
Suburbia was one of my first board game purchases when I came back to the hobby many years ago. It’s still one of my favourite games.
Designed by Ted Alspach, this is a tile-laying game where each player is trying to build the most populace city borough (i.e. get the most victory points). The game is best known for how the various tiles and their colours interact with each other, both positively and negatively.
It’s long been a popular game, but one of the knocks against it has been the rather plain graphic design (not to mention the 5-Star expansion, the less said about the better, though obviously Ted disagrees.).
Was that the main reason you didn’t pick it up?
If so, have I got news for you.
The Suburbia: Collector’s Edition is coming to Kickstarter on January 14, with a projected release date of October 2019.
The Collector’s Edition comes with upgraded, very colourful artwork on the tiles.
From the press release:
“Suburbia Collector’s Edition is being released with beautiful new three dimensional artwork by Brett Stebbins and a ton of upgrades! Oversized tiles, new player colors, and city-specific borough boards are only the beginning; this edition also features several Game TrayzTM organizers, a giant tower to disperse tiles, recessed borough boards, redesigned population board, unique landmarks for each player color, and all existing expansions as well as a brand new one: Nightlife, which has buildings and locations that are more active in the evening hours and dramatic nighttime artwork.”
The tiles are very brightly coloured, though I do have to wonder about the size of the most important information to be seen from across the table.
The income symbol on the Empire State Building seems a little small, but maybe it won’t be when it’s actually in use.
The release also mentions “oversized tiles,” but it’s unclear just how big “oversized” really is.
I guess we’ll find out. Depending on how big they are, that might solve the “small information” fear mentioned above.
The recessed borough boards look pretty cool, with indentations for the income and reputation markers that will solve any “oops, I bumped my board and I don’t remember where anything goes” issues.
They also seem to have had a colour enhancement. That red is almost blinding!
One of the coolest things (though we’ll see how easy to use it is) is the tile dispenser from Gametrayz for the real estate market.
The tower will solve one of the issues with the game in that the real estate market in the previous version can really add to the table space requirements. Just like building tons of new high rises in Downtown Vancouver, Bezier Games has decided to go vertical to save space.
We’ll see how easy to use it is, but it definitely will attract attention on the table.
It sounds like the Collector’s Edition will also come with other storage organizers from Gametrayz. The back of the box mentions “3 Gametrayz storage trays”
The Collector’s Edition will also have all of the expansions, including the Con tiles and Essen tiles, which is cool.
One thing I’m not 100% happy about is that this new edition will also have a new expansion: Nightlife.
This expansion will have new night-specific tiles with interesting-looking interactions, at least judging from the three examples above.
So why am I not 100% happy?
It requires that somebody who wants that expansion has to buy the whole Collector’s Edition in order to get it. If you have all of the previous expansions and base game, you won’t be able to get it without buying all of that stuff again (though it will have much better artwork, of course)
I’m going by supposition here, of course, but I can’t imagine they would have also created the expansion with the old artwork.
Maybe Bezier Games will surprise me and offer the expansion by itself (mixing the artwork wouldn’t be a horrible thing, I guess) on the Kickstarter.
Anyway, this does look really cool and I am really curious what the price will be on this one.
We’ll find out when the Kickstarter goes live on January 14.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 
Woohoo I am all in for this one. That tray organiser looks amazing!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It does look pretty cool. I’d like to see it in action, though.
And I’ve heard that this is on the Bezier Games web site for $100 US. I’m assuming that’s what it will be on Kickstarter for the basic one with no extra stretch goals, but I’m not 100% sure.
LikeLike
Yeah I’m a bit worried about the price! Especially with shipping costs. But. It. Does. Look. Gooooood.
LikeLiked by 1 person
$100 seems high for a reprint of a game that’s been around for so long. I mean, nicer (ostensibly) pieces are fine and all, but I’d prefer some new variants on play, some exclusive buildings (Nightlife will surely be released later as its own expansion), and maybe some solo scenarios? I know, I’m asking for too much….
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m honestly not sure whether Nightlife will be released separately. Having to do everything again for it may be more than they want to do.
It does seem a little high, but I’m waiting to see it in action on the Kickstarter page before making a final determination.
LikeLike
Pingback: Suburbia – Collector’s Edition Now Live on Kickstarter – Dude! Take Your Turn!