Welcome To is a 2018 game designed by Benoit Turpin, and published by Deep Water Games
Welcome To is a roll-and-write supporting any number of players, all competing to plan the best 1950’s suburb. Build parks, pools, the works. May the best architect win.
Is it fun?
This game is the first one that made me realize “roll & writes” could be more fun than they should be on paper (heh heh heh). With the bulk of my roll & write exposure being Yahtzee, I had not anticipated how much ground a designer could cover with this space, and Welcome To is only scratching the surface. It should be said that there’s no rolling — the randomness factor is handled by a deck of cards that players must respond to in making their choices, but the net result is the same.
Win, lose, or draw, this game is great fun. The feeling of having built something is deeply satisfying, and grows deliciously over the course of the game. While you are nominally competing with the other players (a criticism I will address later on), the focus lies almost exclusively on your own neighborhood until the end of the game, making the competition feel more about beating your previous scores than the other players. The result is an extremely addictive game.
Do the components/aesthetics improve the experience?
It’s just paper and some cards and your own writing utensil, but the art is well done and they’ve managed to fit a lot of information inside a manageable space. Notably, Deepwater Games offers a dry-erase experience, but I haven’t had a chance to experience that. I’d consider this the bar to clear for similar roll-and-write style games.
The tableau is easy to read and does a great job visually facilitating scoring. I find the color palette very pleasing and cohesive. While the game is not going to blow you away with stunning visuals, I find no faults here.
Does playing the game create an immersive experience?
The actions in the town feel fun and interesting and immersive, like building pools and parks and fences and yes, even the houses. I totally get how hiring a pool company lets me build a pool. And maybe it’s the American in me, but I also understand that building a pool increases my score.
But on the “business side” of the score sheet, I felt disconnected from the ideas of the “Temp Agency” and the poorly-localized “Bis” — their mechanics don’t feel intuitive. I have no idea how hiring a temp worker lets me change the number of my house, in real life or in this game. I had to go hunting online to figure out what “Bis” means, but I still don’t know why it couldn’t be localized to “Duplex”.
Sure, I’m nit picking, but from the point of view of a new player approaching the game, these were the mechanics I least wanted to interact with because they were the most confusing and least intuitive.
There might be some teensy thematic cracks in the game, and the ‘Bis’ mechanic is not well localized, I will concede, but overall I’d say yes. You’re planning out a neighborhood–parks and pools make it more attractive, house numbers have to be sequential up a street, etc.
Even if a largely-solitaire experience, when it’s over you will want to look at your opponents’ sheets and see what they did differently–how their story unfolded versus your own.
How often does a player make meaningful choices?
Every turn a player is presented with three options: three possible tasks, each one with an associated number of a house to write down. Each action taken now narrows the window of possibility in the future and begins to give the town its unique shape. One of my favorite parts of Welcome To is seeing the ways in which my fellow players share my vision… or diverge from it.
Mmm-mmmm-mmmmm. Choose one pair of cards from three pairs, then write a number in one of 3 rows following some simple rules, then maybe circle or cross something out? What could be easier? And yet, those very simple decisions mask a complex engine of strategic thinking and balancing risk against reward. I simply love it.
Does the level of player interaction encourage continual engagement?
I’m gonna level with you. There is virtually no player interaction, but there is definitely continual engagement. It’s every developer for themselves. You’re just in the same place at the same time comparing notes. Don’t get me wrong — comparing notes is fun, but in simultaneous-play, non-interactive games, it’s really gotta wow me to be worth it. The lack of player interaction is probably the biggest disappointment for me on what is otherwise a fascinating and fun experience.
I will admit, as previously foreshadowed, that this is a pretty head-down, solitary experience. I’ve played this game from 1 handsome player all the way up to, I believe, 12 beautiful souls, and there is basically no difference in my individual play experience at any count along that scale. Sure I might try to steal a glance at other neighborhoods and see if anyone is going to beat me to an objective, but I’ve not found that worrying about other players impacts my own play much, if any. That said, am I engaged throughout? Resoundingly so. I guess, then, partial credit.
Is the game balanced such that it feels like a fair experience?
It’s definitely fair: Every player is presented with the same pool of options, and your choices are your own. The game would end in a draw if each player made the same decisions. An identical outcome for identical decision making? Yep. Sounds fair. There’s something inherently satisfying about a game design that’s so balanced.
Everyone has the same tableau, the same cards to choose from, the same objectives. It could not be more balanced.
How often would you want to play this game?
I have no idea how Thom could even keep mental track of seven of these at the same time. Or even found the motivation to do so.
Here’s my deal, right? I lean much more toward interactive play, whether that’s cooperative or competitive (granted, every style of play has its drawbacks, etc — I get it). I would only suggest this to see if a group was interested, and I’d only pull it out if asked.
There was a stretch of a few weeks where I had seven concurrent games of this going at any given time (online). I think it could go without saying, but won’t, that the re-playability is solid.
Is the game accessible?
There’s a lot to keep track of, symbols-wise, and a lot of scoring rules to focus on. It can take a couple of games to get a feel for how it plays, and it can be daunting at first. Beyond that, though, there’s no significant reading required. Strategizing the best possible play can take some mental math, and it may or may not be worth it.
In terms of teaching/learning, extremely. Thematically it is a bit of a harder sell to someone outside the hobby, but if you can convince them to play it is an excellent gateway game, in my opinion.
Is the game good value?
The game advertises itself as supporting 1-100 players in about twenty-five minutes of run time. Honestly, you could probably stream it and get even more players, provided you had score sheets enough to go around. For all the faults I have with this game, it’s still fun and interesting with the right crowd, and at $23 (at time of publication) I’m hard pressed to suggest a similar game to get your feet wet in the world of Roll-n-Writes (again — no rolling here).
It comes with 100 neighborhood sheets, so if you assume an average group of 4 people you’ve got 25 plays in the box. If you are playing twice a gathering, and convene once a month, you’ll have about a year’s-worth of plays. For a $20 game, I think that’s not bad. AND, the tableau is simple enough that you could mock it up on some scratch paper if need be; all you really need are the cards.
Je ne sais quoi?
I won’t lie: there’s a natural charm here. I don’t dislike the game. And as an introduction to the world of Roll-and-Writes Welcome To feels as though it should share a similar place on the self next to a game like Catan. Solid game, good for what it is, not unpleasant to play. But there are a lot of other games out there to try. And several of them are better.
I’ve played 44 games of Welcome To in roughly the last year, and if you proposed a match, I’d still be 100% ready to go.
Final Thoughts
This is a very good introduction to roll-and-writes, and possibly board games in general. It is a chill, puzzle-y experience; not too difficult to teach or intimidating when you take it off the shelf, and the kind of game where, when someone finishes their first game, they are likely to say, “Huh. Can we try that again?”
If you try this game, enjoy it, and want a similar experience with a little more weight, one of, if not our tippity-top pick in the genre is Dinosaur Island Rawr and Write. If that’s still too light for you, Hadrian’s Wall is a monster to teach, but very enjoyable once you’ve got a handle on it.
Final Scores