Tower Up is a new city building tile placement game where your architectural firm has been selected to renovate the city’s new downtown. But you aren’t the only ones. You need to manage your resources and plan out your constructions to excel in certain buildings to gain points in the game. The game is for 2-4 players, takes 45 minutes to play, and can be played by families with players aged 8 and up. The game is published by Monolith Board Games which is known for publishing Conan, Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, and Mythic Battles: Ragnarok.
What’s in the Box?
- 1 Two-Sided Game Board
- 120 Floor Tiles in 4 colors (30x of each color)
- 40 Roofs (10x of each color)
- 4 Personal Boards
- 44 Materials Cards
- 10 Objective Cards
- 12 Bonus Chips
- 16 Vehicle Markers (4x of each)
- 4 Traffic Cone Markers
How’s it Play?
Tower Up is all about money, and you want to be the richest player at the end of the game. You will be collecting different color tiles to use to then put them strategically on the board to build towers, and then placing your roof on a building to help you score points. Timing and placement in this game is key as you will use other materials when obeying placement rules when placing certain tiles onto the board.
There are 3 ways to gain income: placing your roofs on high buildings, reaching the city planning’s objectives as fast as possible, and having many of your roofs on top of buildings at the end of the game.
On your turn you either take a card or start 1 new building by placing out building tiles, placing one of your roofs, and scoring points. There is a market that consists of 3 cards showing blocks of certain colors or blocks and specific markers that you can move for free. You then select a card to discard and gain what’s shown on that card and a new card will take its place.
You can only have 10 tiles at a time. Additionally, you start with 10 roofs to eventually place down that are sometimes required for completing objective cards, and also used to gain money at the end of the game.
With the other option, you can start a new building by adding a tile onto an empty spot on the board. This spot must be adjacent to one other already placed out building tile, and it cannot be the same color as any building adjacent to it. You then pay additional tiles by placing matching tiles of any adjacent spaces that has a tile present. If you don’t have a tile color to do this, you cannot do that move.
After placing your tile and paying any additional tiles, you place a roof on one of the floors. This can be the newly started building or any other building that served as payment for this turn. That building that received your roof then lets you score by moving the marker of the building color that matches the color marker on your player board the amount of steps equal to the number of building tiles currently on that spot.
As time goes on, others can continue to build on top of other players or your own roof with tiles and other roofs. Again, the higher the tower, the further you move your marker, and the more money you make at the end of the game.
Once all markers on your player board pass the star column, you are granted an extra turn. As you play, whenever a player completes an objective, they take the highest numbered token from that area to add to their player board to gain that much more money at the end of the game.
Once a player places their last roof, they finish their turn and count all the towers they have with a roof on top. This number is how many spaces you move your cone to score more points with having more towers with your roof on top. Then all other players take their last turn and also count their visible roofs from the top and move their cone to the space equal to the number of roofs they have on top of buildings. You then count up the money made from all your markers and bonus tokens, and the player with the most money wins the game.
The Verdict
Tower Up is such an interesting tile placement building game! Unlike other similar games, you’re focused on placing the same color building tiles on the same color building, with maybe some roofs mixed into it.
You want to focus on the objective cards and try to complete them as fast as you can to gain the most money when completing them. This should give you guidance as to how what might be trying to do. Next, you want to get markers as far right on your player board as possible, as each slot closer to the ‘end’ (i.e., to the right) gives you more money per movement than the markers on the left. But, you also want to move your markers somewhat evenly to gain extra turns, as each time all the marker go past a star column, you gain an extra turn.
You also need to pay attention to what you need to place certain tiles. You might find that you want to make a certain move, but might not have a specific color tile to pay when placing another tile. Sure, you can always choose a card with the color tile on it, but that move might not be there when it comes back to your turn.
Placement in Tower Up is a little trickier than you might realize. Because you can’t place similar colors next to each other, you want to take advantage of high towers already formed. But when you do, you might have to pay more tiles to play in those locations.
Tower Up is a fun game of changing tiles that makes you choose between more places to build on and tall buildings that give you the most benefit – but you will have to pay additional tiles to play in those spots. You will need to balance these, and make sure you have the right color and amount of tiles to make those moves when they become available.
I like the stacking, and the rules as to how you place your tiles. You want to move up your markers, but doing certain things to complete objectives while you do that also let you layer how you gain your money. Tower Up is a fun game with some fun components. They have dual layer player boards and fun plastic tower tiles. You’ll be off and playing the game in no time, as the rules don’t take a ton of time to understand, but the game still gives you choices to take advantage of different things as you play the game.
Images via Monolith Board Games
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