Farmers markets are known the world over as almost all countries have some form of them.

At these markets, patrons enjoy a wide variety of goods that reflect the culture and economy of the area they’re being held in. From produce to handcrafted goods, you can find almost anything you want or need at one of these amazing local events.

In Downtown Farmers Market, from Blue Orange Games, players compete to gather goods from the market that fulfill 8 overlapping objectives. The player who does this the best is crowned Market Champion.

 

How to play Downtown Farmers Market

Setup:

Players shuffle the Challenge tiles together and deal 4 to each player. They then decide which side they want to use and place them in a row in whatever order they want. This row forms the top of a 4×4 Challenge grid players will be creating. Next, 4 new Challenge tiles are dealt to each player. Players again choose which side they want to use, and place these in a column in whatever order they want. This creates the left side of the 4×4 Challenge grid.

Players now shuffle the Goods tiles, creating a draw stack that is placed face down in the center of play. The top 5 tiles are drawn and placed in a row next to the draw stack.

With that, play is ready to begin.

Game Play:

The player who last visited a farmers market is given the First Player token.

On their turn, a player takes a tile from the face-up row of Goods tiles and places it into their Challenge grid. The tile must be placed in an empty space within the 4×4 grid.

Once finished, the next player (in clockwise order) takes a Goods tile and places it in their Challenge grid. This continues until all players have placed a new Goods tile into their 4×4 Challenge grid. Note: there are different rules on taking tiles based on the number of players. For this example we’re using the rules for a 4 player game.

The round ends once everyone has taken a tile and placed it into their grid. The last player to place a tile now becomes the first player and 4 new Goods tiles are drawn from the stack and placed face-up next to the one remaining tile from the previous round.

Play continues this way until all players have filled their 4×4 Challenge grids.

Scoring:

Players score points listed on their completed Challenge tiles. The player with the highest score wins. If there’s a tie, the player with the most completed Challenge tiles is the winner. If there’s still a tie, the player with the highest valued completed Challenge tile wins. If there’s still a tie, the players share the victory.

There’s also a child-friendly mode that eliminates the use of the Challenge tiles. In this case, the players score 1 point for each item that’s in the majority for each row and column.

The Breakdown of Downtown Farmers Market

At some point, someone should crown Blue Orange Games the “King of the Gateway Games.”

They’re so good at producing games that are simple, creative, and well designed, allowing for gamers of any level to enjoy the experience. Downtown Farmers Market is no exception.

Theme and Mechanics:

I can’t think of another game that has a farmers market theme. I’m sure there’s one out there, but I just can’t think of one off the top of my head. For that reason I was really excited to try out Downtown Farmers Market.

The mechanics work seamlessly with this theme. With each player vying for specific Goods tiles that will work best with their Challenge grid, it can become quite heated. It can also be quite the puzzle. Since the Challenge tiles are set up to form columns and rows, they overlap one another. In the column you might be looking for a lot of bread, while in the row you may need a certain amount of total goods. So it becomes super important at the beginning of the game to layout out your Challenge grid so the overlapping goals coincide with one another.

Towards the end of the game, players may have to make some tough decisions about which Challenge tiles to leave unfulfilled or hope that the right goods come up. This really adds to the excitement.

Flow and accessibility:

The game moves quickly as players draft tiles and place tiles into their grid. There’s little to no downtime through this 16-round game, keeping it at a very respectable 20-25 minutes.

New and young players can easily pick this one up once they understand what each Challenge tile means. There are 7 different types including; matching the number of goods, no goods of a type, exact number of goods, total number of goods, every good, most of a certain type and the number of goods present.

I only wish it had a higher player count so our whole family could play. As it stands right now, you can only have a four player game. That being said, I bet you could buy two copies to accommodate more players.

Production Value:

The artwork is so fun on this one and really fits the theme and playfulness of the game well. All the tile components are thick and well made and fit snugly in a sturdy magnetic box.

How does Downtown Farmers Market score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

As you can probably tell from the write up so far, Downtown Farmers Market scores high on my “Let’s Play Again” meter. It hits a lot of the checkboxes we use when selecting a game to play; short play time, easy set up and take down, simple rules, and compelling game play. The scarcity of the Goods tiles and nature of the overlapping Challenge tiles makes this a super fun puzzle game.

As with most games from Blue Orange Games, this one will see a lot of play time due to all the factors above, especially when I get a second copy.

 

About the Author

Dane is an Advertising and Layout Manager for a national magazine by day and a husband, father of four, and board gamer by night. He has a passion for board games and believes board games help bring families closer together while providing kids a unique way to learn many diverse skills. And he thinks they’re downright fun!!!

The Board Game Family would like to thank Blue Orange Games for a review copy of Downtown Farmers Market.