This post is part of the Information Finding Championship weekly challenge. This week we were tasked with teaching people how to do something of our choosing. As such, I've decided to teach everyone how to play the game "Welcome To."

Introduction

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As some people on Steemit already know, my wife and I are big fans of card and board games. We have collected a fair amount over the years and we play quite often - multiple times per week if not everyday. One of our more recent purchases is a game called “Welcome To: Your Perfect Home.” It is a unique game that is part of the trending genre of games known as “roll and write.” In this style of game, players roll a set of dice (or flip cards) and then mark their actions on a score sheet (think Yahtzee).

In “Welcome To” players take on the role of 1950’s architects during the Baby Boom and attempt to design and construct the best neighborhood within their small towns. Each game takes approximately 25 minutes to complete and you can have as many people play at once as their are score cards. The box comes with 100 score cards so in theory you could have 100 people play at once. I laminated 4 score cards so that they could be re-used with a dry erase marker.

The games aesthetic design has a very 1950’s feel to it which can be seen on its packaging as well as some of the artwork that comes with the game. I get a bit of a kick out of these miniature posters that came in the box.

The Cards

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Before the game begins a set of three "city plan" cards are randomly selected and placed at the top of the game area. These cards offer an additional challenge to players, awarding extra points to any player who completes the task listed on them. The first player to complete the task is awarded the most points - represented by the number on the left side of the card. Any player to complete the task afterwards receives a slightly lower amount of points - represented by he number on the right side of the card. If any player completes all three of the tasks the game ends.

The next set of cards are "effects" cards. They allow the player to gain additional points in the game by improving their neighborhoods. For instance, players can build fences around homes to create estates, they can build parks and swimming pools, and they can hire temp agencies. All of these effects hold their own unique advantage within the game and are associated with their own unique point structure. Points are tallied at the end of the game and the player with the most points at the end wins.

The last set of cards are called "construction" cards. These cards are numbered from 1 to 15 and represent the addresses of each home on the street within the neighborhood. The numbers are located on the back of the "effects" cards.

Game Play

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The first thing that everyone has to do when playing the game is name their town. As you can see in the picture, I named my town "Leaky Ville." This isn't really necessary but its adds to the playfulness of the game and can be a source of humor in some cases.

At the start of the game the cards are arranged as shown in the picture below, with the "city plan" cards at the top, the "effect" cards in the middle and the numbered "construction" cards at the bottom. At the beginning of each round, the card from the top of the "effects" card pile is turned over, revealing the construction card on the opposite side. Each effect goes with the card directly below it.

After the construction cards are flipped over and the effects cards are revealed, each player chooses a number from the three construction cards and writes their selection on their score card. This is done simultaneously at the same time which is one aspect about the game that I love, as it makes for very little down time.

Each player writes their selected number on one of the empty houses on any one of their streets. However, numbers have to be written in ascending order from left to right. For instance, in the picture above I chose the number 3 and wrote that number on an empty house. From now on, I can not put a number higher than a 3 on either of the houses to the left of that house. In choosing the three I can also choose to use the effect card associated with it, which in this case is a park. In the picture above you can see that I crossed off the first available park on that street (i.e. middle right of the score card).

The picture below is about half way through the game. As you can see I completed two of the city plan tasks, built some parks and pools and increased the value of some of the estates.

The last thing to note regarding the game play is that if a player cannot build a house on any of their streets for any reason then that player receives a "building permit refusal." Building permit refusals are worth negative points at the end of the game. If a player receives three refusals the game ends.

End of Game

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The game ends in a few different ways as follows:

1. If a player completes all of the city plan tasks.
2. If a player builds all of the houses on each of the three streets located on their score card.
3. If a player receives three building permit refusals.

After one of these three options occurs the game ends and players tally up their score cards. As you can see in the picture above my final score was 73, which is not very high. I probably would have lost this game.

And that's it! That is how you play "Welcome To: Your Perfect home."

Thanks For Reading