Hangtown

In the game of Hangtown, players become Gold Rush era Pioneers who are competing for riches, resources, property, and prestige. …They must also be prepared to deal with outlaws, shootouts, and hangings at the infamous Hangman’s Tree!

The game features a thoughtful variety of streamlined mechanics, which are notably innovative, yet traditional and familiar in feel—such as fresh spins on tableau building, worker placement, simultaneous action selection, variable turn order, and resource and hand management.

Some of the best strategies in Hangtown rely on a balance between optimizing one’s own scheme and cunningly “playing the players”. A standout theme in the game is “Boom or Bust”. If a player can get “out of phase” for a turn, he or she will profit from a “Boom yield” and get bonuses, while the other players may go “Bust” and get very little. But of course, this takes sharp wits and some clever guesswork…

The game is played in a series of rounds, which break down into a series of turns and phases. In a turn, each player selects one card that will determine the phase that his or her Pioneer will take action in. When the players are ready, they simultaneously reveal their chosen cards and place their Pioneer pawns in the corresponding yield sites on the board.