Uptown

Uptown is a tile-laying game that can be played by 3-5 players (special rules for 2). Uptown is great for serious gamers, new gamers, families, friends… in other words, everybody! The rules are very short (see below), and a typical game lasts 30-40 minutes. But allow more time because you will want to play again and again!

What’s the goal? The goal of the game is to try to connect your tiles together into as few groups as possible (maybe just one!). A group consists of adjacent tiles of the same color, but diagonal connections don’t count. The player with the fewest groups at the end is the winner!

So how do you play? Everyone chooses a color, takes those tiles, and places them face down in front of them. Then draw 5 of these tiles randomly into your rack so only you can see them.

Let’s begin! On your turn take one of the tiles from your rack and place it on the board. As shown in the picture to the left, number tiles go in one of the nine spaces in the corresponding number column, letter tiles go in one of the nine spaces in the corresponding letter row, and symbol tiles go in one of the corresponding symbol spaces. Your single “money tile” ($) can go anywhere!

You may place your tile on an empty space, or you may capture an opponent’s tile by replacing his tile with your tile. However, as shown in the picture to the right, you may not capture an opponent’s tile if that action would split that group into multiple groups.

When you capture a tile, take it tile and put it face up in front of your tile rack for all to see. At the end of your turn, draw another one of your tiles and put it in your rack. Next player!

All done? Play until everyone has no face-down tiles remaining, and then everyone plays one more turn. The winner is the player who has the fewest groups on the board, and the tie-breaker is fewest number of captured tiles. If you’re still tied… you should play again!