One of the more talked about games at Origins Game Fair this year is Cøpenhagen from Queen Games. This one caught my attention early on, because I love tile-laying polyomino (think Tetris) games. We had the opportunity to demo this game our first day at Origins and while ultimately didn’t end up buying it, I think there are a lot of players who should.
So who should buy Cøpenhagen? Anyone who is starting to build out their board game collection and loved Tetris as a kid. This is an excellent “gateway game” for this genre. The rules aren’t overly complicated, it’s a relatively quick set up, and it will play in 30-45 minutes depending on the number of players. There’s a similar set collection mechanic, like in Ticket to Ride, where players need to acquire certain color cards in order to utilize structure pieces. Players select various pieces based on the number of cards they play, then build the front of their gable house. Scoring is based on vertical and horizontal rows completed. The number of points you score depends on whether or not you’re able to complete a row with only windows (2 points for horizontal rows and 4 points for vertical rows) or if the row contains bricks and windows (1 point for horizontal rows and 2 points for vertical rows).
The theme is based on the beautiful “Nyhavn” (new harbor) gable houses along the waterfront in Cøpenhagen, Denmark. Each player has their own player board house to build. The components vary slightly between the retail and deluxe edition, with the retail offering cardboard tile pieces while in the deluxe edition these pieces are acrylic.
I personally think the better player count for this game is 3-4, although it did scale ok to two players. There is just less competition for the limited number of shaped tiles, which ultimately leads to a faster game and rows are relatively easy to complete. This was one of the main reasons I decided not pick up a copy of Cøpenhagen. It also failed to fill a void in our collection or improve upon a mechanic we enjoy. Now don’t get me wrong, this is a well-made tile placement game. We already own Bärenpark, which scales wonderful between 2-4 players, and Patchwork, which is designed for two players. Gamers who own Cottage Garden or Indian Summer may feel similar.
This game is absolutely going to end up on a lot of game shelves and I’ll happily play it if ever asked to. I just couldn’t find the space on my shelf for it right now. Retail copies at Origins are selling for $49 and the deluxe versions are $90. Both copies at the convention are being sold with Mission Tiles and Ability Tiles. It appears that this may be a little different if you’re picking up this game outside of the convention setting. The Deluxe Edition contains Joker Tiles, Missions Tiles and Ability Tiles exclusively, so choose your copy carefully.
Are you going to be adding Cøpenhagen to your game shelf? If so, will you still invite me over? Let us know in the comments below!