Manhattan (board game)

Manhattan is a board game designed by Andreas Seyfarth and published by Hans im Gluck in 1994 for two to four players, with games typically lasting about forty-five minutes. Players compete as rival developers erecting skyscrapers across a shared city board, selecting building cards that specify how many pieces of a building may be placed and choosing which city block to build on. Because buildings can rise on top of each other's structures, and pieces may be stacked on opponents' buildings as well as a player's own, control of a given skyscraper can shift during the game as taller pieces are added above shorter ones. Scoring rewards players for the buildings they control outright at the game's end, favoring careful timing over simply building the most. The designer described drawing inspiration from wanting to raise a flat tile-laying game into a genuine three-dimensional building game. Manhattan received the 1994 Spiel des Jahres, Germany's leading board game award, with reviewers praising its originality and easy-to-learn but interactive play; Mayfair Games brought an English edition to North America in 1996, and Rio Grande Games issued another edition in 2007. Designer Andreas Seyfarth later became widely known for designing Puerto Rico.