_Skyway_ is, somehow, a thematic city builder

Originally published on Board Game Geek. Skyway claims to be a city builder in the vein of Sprawlopolis, to which I thought “Impossible! Sprawlopolis uses custom cards that have a grid of four blocks and variable scoring criteria. How can that be done with standard cards?” Ok, I didn’t think that verbatim, but I was skeptical. And I was wrong. City-building games go back to at least SimCity map building concept. Drop in new zones, watch people move in, build them something cool like a stadium, see crime and pollution build up, and, because you’re a jerk, send in a natural disaster to see what happens. It’s a sandbox with no objective besides fun. Unlike SimCity, Sprawlopolis has a scoring system that allows wins and loses. Getting good at these games requires dealing with increasingly complicated tradeoffs between the various scoring mechanisms. There’s no variable scoring in Skyway. Either you build a city that includes a path of 5 increasing cards for each suit or you don’t. The…