''Manhattan'' is a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a ...

Andreas Seyfarth Andreas Seyfarth (born 6 November 1962) is a German-style board game designer, who is most famous for creating ''Puerto Rico'', which is highly ranked on BoardGameGeek. In 2002, the game was awarded first place for the prestigious Deutscher Spi ...

. In the game, players aim to construct and control skyscrapers that will award points. ''Manhattan'' received generally positive reviews and won the 1994

Spiel des Jahres The Spiel des Jahres (, ''Game of the Year'') is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence ...

award.

History

The game was designed by

, a previously obscure designer who became well-known for this game and later released ''Puerto Rico''. Inspired by the idea of "to rise a flat game in the third dimension", the game was originally published by the German company

Hans im Glück Hans im Glück is a German board and card game publisher. Though many of their own games are language-independent they themselves publish only printings for the domestic market which include only German-language rules; English-language printing ...

. English-language version was published by

Mayfair Games Mayfair Games was an American publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games that also licensed Euro-style board games to publish them in English. The company licensed worldwide English-language publishing rights to ''The Settlers of Catan'' se ...

in 1996, and a Rio Grande version released in 2007.

Gameplay

In Manhattan, players aim to construct skyscrapers from selecting their building cards, selecting a city on the game board and placing building pieces in spaces corresponding to it. Players may place on a building owned by them or on an empty space; however, placing it on a skyscraper controlled by another player requires the same number of floors of his/her colour compared to the player in control. Control is simply determined by which player has the top piece. After six pieces are placed, points are awarded for each skyscraper and also bonus points for the tallest skyscraper and most skyscraper in each city. The game ends after all twenty-four parts are placed.

Reception

Manhattan received generally positive reviews. It was the winner of

in 1994, with the jury describing it as "original and highly stimulating", praising the game's engagement, accessibility, and interaction; despite some contemporary reviews being mixed. However, Board Game Quest gave a mixed review and awarded the game three out of five stars. The accessibility and mechanics of the game were praised, but it was also criticised its lack of complexity, dated design, and limited appeal for two players. A review from ''Lautapeliopas'' described the gameplay as decent, but was critical of the components and scalability. Multiple reviewers commented on ''Manhattan'' from The Opinionated Gamers and had varying conclusions. The reviewer Chris Wray praised on its accessibility, originality and complexity, whereas other reviewers criticised its appeal with gamers and dated gameplay, stating that it was "abstract, chaotic, and luck-driven".

References

External links

''Manhattan'' page
at

BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition t ...

{{Spiel des Jahres Andreas Seyfarth games Board games introduced in 1994 Economic simulation board games Hans im Glück games Mayfair Games games Spiel des Jahres winners