Benoit Turpin: Welcome To – Review

Designer	Benoit Turpin
Genre	Flip and Write
Number of Players	1-100
Play Time	25 minutes
Initial Review Date	3/23/21
Last Updated	3/23/21

In this board game players score points by selecting homes to build and placing them on one of 3 streets in their own neighborhood. while every player has the same choices, their decisions can result in drastically different outcomes. It’s a game to see who can adapt the best.

Setup

Each player is given a neighborhood plan sheet and a player aide. Then the City Plan cards are shuffled into 3 equal stacks of 27 cards each, with the house number face up.

Gameplay

On a turn the top 3 Construction Cards are flipped over so that they form 3 combinations of house numbers and abilities. Each player then chooses one of these combinations to use, with the following limitations

• House numbers must go from lowest to highest from left to right. However, they do not otherwise have to be in sequential order.
• House numbers can not repeat on the same row.
• Performing the Effect is optional

If a player can not legally play any of the cards then they must cross off a Building Permit Refusal and pass. If a player meets all of the requirements of a City Plan, they announce this has been done and score the top value for that plan, as do any other players that achieved the plan that turn. Any player to meet the requirements on subsequent turns receives the lower value. Each player can only score each City Plan once, and each City Plan to be scored can not overlap with previous City Plans.

Effects

The various effects the houses can have are as follows:

• Surveyor: This card lets you build fences. Fences allow you to group houses together into housing estates.
• Real Estate Agent: This card increases the value of housing estates of a chosen size by 1.
• Landscaper: This card lets you build a park for the row the house is placed in.
• Pool Manufacturer: Some of the houses have a pre-planned pool. If a house number with this power is placed in a spot that has a pre-planned pool, it counts toward the pool bonus at the end of the game.
• Temp Agency: This allows a player to add or subtract 1 to 2 from the house number they are building prior to placing it. this allows a player to have numbers from 0 to 17.
• Bis: This allows the player to duplicate the house number it is associated with and place the duplicate directly to the left or right.

End of the Game

The game ends immediately when one of the following happens:

• A player crosses off their third Building Permit Refusal
• A player achieves all three City Plans
• A player has built all of the houses on their streets.

Winning

Once the end of the game has been triggered each player adds up their points for each category (City Plans, Parks, Pools, Temps and Completed estates) and takes penalties as appropriate (Bis and Building Permit Refusals). The player with the most points wins. In the case of ties the player with the most completed estates wins. If their is still a tie then the winner is the player with the most estates in a particular category, starting with size 1 and working your way up.

Conclusion

This game might be challenging for those who don’t play a lot of board games. Primarily because the strategy may not be readily apparent.

• “Should I play a pool or a bis?”
• “Which city plan should I try to do first?”
• “How far to the left or right should I put this house with a number 9?”

It is actually a fairly crunchy game making it less accessible than it’s theme might suggest. But if your group wants something that’s a bit more challenging this is a nice step up from most entry level board games.

Learning Curve	|	Rating
6/10	|	7/10