Earlier in the week, might have been Monday actually, Penny Lane drop through my letter box.

I had asked Jonathan if he was free to get a learning game in. But events at work mean that was not going to happen. So yesterday afternoon I was pleasantly surprised to get a call asking if I wanted to meet up in the evening for a drink and play a game.

So we both met up at Spoons to play some games and enjoy a beverage or two. First up on the table was, you guessed it Penny Lane.

Penny Lane is designed by Justin Blaske (creator of Mint Works) and Mel Primus. I don’t usually mention the game designer in these little “five minute” reviews. But it’s kinda relevant really when we look at Penny Lane.

When I was looking at the rules initially after it arrived my first thought was this sounds a lot like Mint Works. Which when I checked can be easily explained. As I pointed out above one half of the design team for this game was responsible for Mint Works. So that would explain it.

But Penny Lane isn’t just a larger, prettier Mint Works.

Although the game plays the same. There are a couple of additional mechanics that expand the game and tactics.

So the theme is you are trying to build the most prosperous city avenue.

There are two phases to a round. The action phase and the upkeep phase. In the action phase players take actions until all players have passed consecutively. Then in the upkeep you check for the end of game conditions, tidy up, and gather resources.

The actions you can do are determined by the 8 cards that make up the Main Street. The majority of the actions require coins to activate the action, whilst a couple of them require a worker to be placed there.

The new parts that lift this game above Mint Works are to do with the worker meeples and the tableau building.

Some of the buildings you can buy come with workers, and some buildings need workers on them to activate the buildings abilities. Those that come with workers once the worker has been moved to another building to activate its ability reveal a victory point. But you can’t just move workers willy nilly. You need to spend 2 coins on selecting the appropriate action on the Main Street.

Buildings also have links on them. There are two types of links. Money and victory points.

As you can see in the photo above the links on the building are only half of the icon. If when you place the building complete an icon you get what it represents during upkeep.

If your lane has 10 victory point icons in it, made up from completed links, revealed worker spaces or building abilities, or buildings that just have victory points on them the end of the game will trigger at the start of the upkeep.

Otherwise during upkeep you get a coin for each completed coin link, card ability that generates them.

So you are having to not only think about what the building does, but also what links it has and where you will place it in your lane.

The additions are nice and add a little more depth to the game. But not so much that it slows the game down. Penny Lane still plays quickly.

So what are the bad points of the game? Well they are production,graphic design ones that are minor in the grand scheme of things.

For instance some of the Main Street cards have a little top hat symbol on them which indicates which side is used based on the number of players. The size of this makes the number unreadable! Why they just didn’t just make it a bit larger and more readable I don’t know. Or just put the icon on the side that is used in a 2/3 player game I don’t know.

The none standard card size used for the Main Street cards is annoying. I was able to sleeve the building cards no problem. But the Main Street cards are approx 10mm too tall to fit in 70mm by 110mm sleeves that I had on hand. Why not just go with the “standard” digit card size? The player boards only thing I can think for them is to laminate them.

I’d also liked to have seen the Main Street cards thicker, or even cardboard. I did notice one or two of the cards warp on the table. So they will have to be sleeved. I’d have liked to seen the player boards use thicker card stock too.

If you like Mint Works you will love Penny Lane. Jonathan and I both really liked this. I’m going to go as far as to say it replaces Mint Works for me. Ok the box is larger. Not by a great deal. Still very portable. But I like the little extra it brings to the table. It’s fun. Quick. And scratches that worker placement itch when you don’t have that much time. Hopefully this will get a bit of buzz when it hits. It deserves it.

The history books will record that I won both of our games.

Our final game of the evening was the classic two player Jaipur. That after a very close first round where a point separated us. Jonathan widened the gap he had and won.

A great unexpected evening gaming. A fantastic way to end the week.

Games Played: Penny Lane, Jaipur