Stack City board game preview

A friend of ours has designed a new family board game and we’re excited to tell you about it.

Stack City is a competitive city-planning game in which players construct a 3D city full of business, community, entertainment, and service buildings. It has what we look for in good family board games—a good balance of strategy and luck.

And regardless of the outcome, because of how you’ve stacked the city, it’s always fun to sit back after the game and admire how the city turned out.

He’s been working on it for years, and we were able to participate in some of the original playtesting for the game last year. After many revisions, his prototype is ready to share with the world in anticipation of his upcoming crowdfunding campaign at the start of 2025.

How to play Stack City

The ultimate goal in Stack City is to earn the most Economy Points from Enterprise and Action cards. Players do this by earning income, acquiring building permits, and constructing buildings throughout the city.

Players begin with a randomly selected starting Enterprise Card (and associated building) among Theater, Restaurant, Church, and School.

The rest of the Enterprise Cards are placed on display with a random Action card placed face down underneath (the value of the Action cards correspond to the row of the display: 1, 2, 3).

Player Turns

On a player’s turn, they follow 3 steps:

Rent: The player collects income corresponding the the location of their tracking piece around the outside of the game board. For example, if the player’s piece is on tracking space 6, 7, or 8, they will earn $2 Million in rent at the start of their turn.
Reward: The player gains all Rewards listed at the top of their Enterprise Cards. From left to right, these rewards include color = Building Permits, white = money, grey = Common Buildings, black = Action Cards. The player takes all the cards in hand and the common buildings into their area.
Action: During this step, the player may do any of the following, in any order
1. Buy Enterprise Buildings (limited to 1 per turn)
2. Place acquired buildings on the board (Common and Enterprise)
3. Play previously acquired Action cards
4. Buy Action cards from the deck (for the cost shown on the back of the card)
5. Trade Permits or Money with other players
6. Trade Permits with the Permit Office at a rate of 2:1 (limited to once per turn)
7. Buy a Permit for $4 Million (limited to once per turn)

Building Placement

There are two types of buildings in the game: grey Common buildings (houses and duplexes) and colored Enterprise buildings. Some Action cards may also turn a Common building into a Condemned building.

Players gain common buildings at the start of each of their turns because each starting building includes this reward. Other enterprise buildings they buy may also have common buildings as a reward. Common buildings may be placed anywhere on the board as well as on top of other grey buildings. They may not be placed on enterprise buildings.

Common buildings have a maximum stacking height of 4 levels.

Enterprise buildings may be purchased during a player’s turn by paying the associated cost listed along the bottom of the enterprise card. These costs include a mix of colored Building Permits and money.

Enterprise buildings may not be placed on the base board spaces, other enterprise buildings, or on top of condemned buildings. They may only be placed on top of common buildings. And they may be stacked on top of a 4th level of common buildings.

Once a player places buildings on the board, they move their tracking piece as many spaces forward as spaces they built. For example, if a player places 2 common buildings and an enterprise building that covers 2 spaces, the player has built on 4 total spaces and will move their piece 4 spaces on the track.

Action Cards

The Action cards are loaded with benefits, but also have a fair share of detrimental effects.

They can be gained in three ways:

When purchasing an enterprise building.
As rewards during their turn turns.
Purchase them outright.

However, action cards may not be played on the turn in which they’re gained.

Here are some of the benefits on Action cards:

Building extra common buildings
Moving common buildings
Extra permits
Moving player markers on the track
Gaining money
Economy points

Whenever a red card is gained, it must be played immediately. These negative actions include:

Condemned buildings
Losing permits
Paying for repairs
Moving backwards on the track

End Game Scoring

The end of the game is triggered when either a player gets to the end of the track or if every building that can, is placed on the board. Players complete that round and then add their Economy Points.

Economy Point are listed in the top right corner of the enterprise building cards. And players may have points on their Action cards.
Players also total up their remaining money and any permits still in their hand and divide by 5 to convert them to Economy Points.
The player who was furthest on the track gets the “Key to the City” card which is worth 2 points.

The player with the most Economy Points wins.

Can the whole family enjoy Stack City?

Stack City has been a hit with everyone we’ve played it with.

Like we mentioned at the beginning, Stack City has a good balance of strategy and luck. Players can easily see which enterprise building cards are available and their cost in building permits. Players can also try to figure out which of those buildings the other players are working to build. And with that, they can plan their strategy for which they’d like to gain first.

Yet, there’s always the unknown information about what Action cards they’ve drawn and how they may throw a wrench in your plans. As such, players will also need to be ready to adjust their plans along the way.

And because the detrimental red action cards are just the luck of the draw away, you’re most likely going to be ready to adjust your plans due to drawing them as well. If an unlucky draw forces you to discard a building permit card that you were counting on using to buy an enterprise building, you’ll need to adjust on the fly.

We also like the asymmetric starting buildings for each player. Each starting building comes with its own strengths and can help players progress in different directions. But they don’t need to feel limited by how they start. Instead, it’s the combination of starting buildings and the enterprise buildings players gain that will dictate their future options.

But what we like the most about the game is the city building on the board itself.

It’s quite satisfying putting new buildings on the board – both common building and enterprise buildings – and watching how that impacts the options for everyone else. Since every enterprise building has a unique footprint and must be built on top of common buildings, you can set yourself up for some great moves while limiting other players in theirs.

It’s not a cutthroat, “in your face” type of game, but you will definitely impact each other as you play. And we enjoy this level of interaction in family board games.

While the components we played with, and that you see in the photos, are prototype components, they’re of a good quality. Which lends us to believe that the finished product will likewise be nicely made.

The cards are clear, easy to read and understand. And the colors match up well with the different types of buildings.

We also like that the income track is integrated with the board and that the player trackers stack like the pieces in the rest of the city. It feels (and looks) like they’re completely part of the city.

Join the Stack City Kickstarter campaign

We don’t typically share about games on Kickstarter. However, since we personally know the designer, Quinn Biesinger, and were a part of the playtesting process, and have enjoyed playing the game, we wanted to tell you about Stack City.

If it sounds like a family board game you’d enjoy playing, check out the Stack City game Kickstarter page and click the “Notify me on launch” button. Then you’ll get notified when the Kickstarter campaign begins (which we anticipate will be in February).

Or you can go directly to the WHM Games website to sign up for game updates.

For those on Instagram, you can also follow the WHM Games Instagram account.