Downtown Las Palmas

• What's Eric Playing?
A teal clutch featuring the words 'Downtown Las Palmas by Erica Pinto' in bold white lettering.

Base price: $12.
1 players.
Play time: ~10 minutes.
BGG Link
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Logged plays: 4 

Full disclosure: A review copy of Downtown Las Palmas was provided by Button Shy.

Continuing on with my extremely vague theme choice, we have Downtown Las Palmas! This game comes in a very teal wallet, so it counts! You know how much we love Button Shy games here at the ol’ website, so getting to check another one out is almost always a blast. I was told this one is a bit different from their usual fare, so I’m excited to check it out! Let’s dive right in before I get distracted again watching my friend play Gnosia.

In Downtown Las Palmas, you’ll take on the role of expanding the downtown in response to the growth of the rest of Las Palmas. There’s lots to do and lots to see, but you’ll have to build up (and out) if you want to achieve the sprawling heights of a city in its full glory. Easier said than done, I suppose. Just be careful, as the various ins and outs of a fresh downtown can be a lot to hold on to if you’re not paying attention. Can you keep it all in hand?

Contents

Setup

Pretty much none? The cards are double-sided, with city stuff on the front:

A collection of illustrated cards displaying various urban scenes, including buildings, people, and vehicles, predominantly in shades of mint green and white.

And scoring criteria on the back:

A fan of playing cards spread out, featuring a design with 'Laspalmas' and city skyline graphics in green and white.

Shuffle the cards city-side up and then flip two over, putting them behind the deck like so:

A hand holding a game card with two point scoring instructions: 'Traffic Jam' and 'Your Tax Dollars At Work', featuring illustrated palm trees and a bus.

Place one card in your dominant hand, and you’re ready to start! Good luck!

A hand holding two game cards. The card on the left features a building labeled 'WESTERN' with a clock and illustrations indicating points for 'Traffic Jam' and 'Your Tax Dollars At Work.' The card on the right shows 'PALMS STATION' with palm trees, a bus, and pedestrians.

Gameplay

A hand holding three illustrated cards featuring local businesses and landmarks, including 'Matcha Marmot,' 'Abby's Bagels,' and 'Palm Station.' The cards are designed with a teal color scheme and depict a person walking and a bicycle.

Easier said than done, as I mentioned. Each turn, you’ll draw a card and add it to the growing tableau. The challenge is that everything has to be in your hand. One hand, nothing else. Cards can go in front of or behind other cards, and as you do so, you’ll eventually find that you might be able to start building up vertically as well. Just be careful; if any card falls the game immediately ends!

When you place a card, naturally, the card needs to be oriented so that any ground is parallel to the actual ground (forming a continuous ground line…ish). For a card to count, it must have at least one scoring element visible and no card can have a building with sky below it or with sky covering scoring elements. That’s not how buildings work.

A hand holding several illustrated cards featuring stylized buildings, palm trees, and urban scenes against a black background.

Once you’re done, you score:

  • +2 points per visible card.
  • +1 point for every pair of two scoring elements.
  • -2 points per hidden card.
  • You also score any bonuses.

The more points you have (based on the size of your hand) the better you do!

Player Count Differences

This one’s a solo game!

Strategy

A hand holding several illustrated cards depicting buildings, cyclists, and palm trees, with a dark background.
  • You might want to stretch your hand first, to be honest. I found that the more flexibility and strength your hand has, the easier it is to get your cards to stick together in one place and not slide around and fall out and such. Otherwise, if your grip isn’t particularly good, well, there the cards go.
  • Watch out for cards with a ton of sky on them! They’re hard to place behind and will block your ability to move upwards. That constrains your city and your score, which isn’t good.
  • It’s worth losing a couple points to reinforce the base of your hand. Having a few cards back-to-back can make the stack thicker and apply more pressure to other cards in that stack, meaning that they’re less likely to move and more likely to stay in one spot. That’s all good!
  • Ideally, knocking out a bunch of icons is good, but getting icons that score you bonus points is better. You get one point for every two scoring icons, so, I mean, they’re worth having around generally, anyways. But focusing on your bonus is how you really make extra points. Keep those front and visible!
  • Going for higher than 2.5 cards vertically is extremely risky. I just find that at that point the cards stop being able to support each other with surface tension and pressure, so they’re much more likely to fall out. That’s never what you want.
  • Stability is almost always worth prioritizing. The more stable your hand is, usually, the more cards you can get in it vertically and horizontally. Both are key to scoring the most points possible.
  • Cards just have to be visible; they don’t need to be completely spread apart. At least one scoring icon needs to be visible for them to count, so, make sure that the scoring icon is visible, but the entire card does not need to be visible. You can use that to cram a few cards together horizontally to form a base if you know how to make everything stick together well.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

A hand holding several illustrated cards featuring urban scenes, including buildings, palm trees, bicycles, and various characters engaged in activities.

Pros

  • The color scheme here is fantastic. I really like it! It’s subtle and pleasant while still looking like a city vibe. It makes me feel like it’s oddly coastal? Maybe that’s just how the colors work.
  • This game genuinely frustrated me, to the point that I ended up playing it four times in a row to try and get the idea of it down. I rarely get animated about games just because, you know, you play enough and then you’re just kind of stuck in a rut, to some degree? This game certainly was not that experience. I actually had planned to review other games this week but I was so intrigued by this that I ended up changing around my schedule to accommodate it. That’s good!
  • It’s genuinely funny that there’s a ruler in the rulebook so that you can measure your hand for scoring purposes. You just don’t see that a lot. It’s even better that it’s actually critical for scoring; players with smaller hands have a lower scoring threshold to get certain ranks, since it’s harder for them to fit as many cards in their tiny hands.
  • There’s certainly nothing in Button Shy’s catalogue like this; what a great get. It’s always fun to see Button Shy pull something entirely new and novel, and this certainly feels like it. I’m excited to see what other games they’re going to pick up if this is where their energy is pointed.
  • Very portable! As usual, that’s Button Shy for you.
  • Surprisingly not too hard to learn, either. Some of the final points of placement and scoring might be a little nuanced, but I don’t think otherwise it’s too complex.

Mehs

  • I understand why there’s a tabletop mode from an accessibility standpoint, but a major chunk of the game is the challenge of the physical dexterity of card management. If you can play the game in hand, it’s worth the challenge.
  • There’s always a chance that the cards might fall out of your hand after the game ends and before scoring, which would be a huge bummer. It’s very sad to end the game and then lose the cards before scoring, but sometimes gravity is actively working against you.

Cons

  • This game is genuinely like nothing I’ve played before, and that does mean that no matter what I say, you’re going to need to get used to it. Your first game will likely be a mess! And that might frustrate you! It certainly frustrated me, but it also intrigued me enough that I needed to play it again. Your mileage may vary.

Overall: 8.5 / 10

A person's hand holding game cards featuring illustrations of buildings, vehicles, and tropical palm trees, with text descriptions for game mechanics like 'Traffic Jam' and 'Your Tax Dollars At Work.'

Downtown Las Palmas is wild. Kind of insane, and I love it for that. I love dexterity games, and I particularly love challenging and off-the-wall dexterity games. This one, it’s tough. I wasn’t prepared for a mild hand cramp in my first game and dropped all the cards on the table and … that wasn’t great. Early and inauspicious end to an otherwise fun game. Here, though, you’ve got a recipe for success. It’s got great art with a light and pleasant palette, so it’s fun to look at. It’s got a unique style and schtick, so it won’t necessarily get old. And it’s just challenging. I’m unfortunately fascinated each time I play. Granted, it takes some getting used to, as evidenced by my first unfortunate game. That may turn you off a bit, but I strongly recommend you push through because it’s really fun as you get better at it. I wonder if there’s expansion potential? Just stuffing more cards into your hand and hoping for the best? I certainly hope so. I’ve mildly ignored the tabletop mode in favor of just dumping as many cards into my hand as possible, which certainly made photography challenging and made score tracking difficult. I wish it were easier to score, but that’s the challenge of any balancing game. If you’re down for some dexterity, you enjoy city-building, or you just like a good challenge, Downtown Las Palmas is a great one to try! I am excited to try it again.

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