When a two-player game comes up for review by The Meeple Guild, it typically falls to Trevor and me to get it to the table.
Usually, that means abstract strategy games, which are highly favoured, or card games. This week’s game was a significant step away from both.
Bunny Kingdom Town has players purchasing buildings that best suit their strategy and placing them in the best locations to grow their districts and earn more golden carrots. That’s what you score, and of course it fits nicely into the whole bunny theme.
Now, the bunny theme won’t work for everyone. In fact, Trevor and I noted the oddity of two guys close to 60 sitting around developing “bunny towns.”
But forget the theme for a moment. This is a game from one of the most notable game designers of the last 50 years, Richard Garfield.
Garfield is, of course, famous for Magic: The Gathering, a game which, when launched in 1993, was hugely innovative and led to a flood of collectible card games, most of them short-lived and long forgotten.
Bunny Kingdom Town is nothing like MtG, but you can tell a designer with some pedigree was likely involved.
There is a lot going on here, with in-game scoring as well as end-game goals worth additional points. You add one of these goals each turn.
As you add properties, you also trigger effects based on what you already have in play and how those properties are situated in relation to one another. There are lots of icons here, so while everything is easy enough to follow, expect repeated rulebook checks during your early plays.
They suggest about 30 minutes for a game, but I would block out closer to an hour for those first few sessions.
The variety created by all those different icon powers also increases the replay possibilities massively.
The synergies can lead to some huge point scores as well.
In our first game, Trevor jumped out to a solid early lead, and we were talking about how a comeback seemed unlikely based on what we could see.
Then I stumbled into a play with multi-icon synergy, scored something like 40 points in one shot, and ended up winning.
The fact that you can claw your way back into contention is a big plus in a game like this.
In the end, this one from publisher IELLO, and available in Canada through ilo307.com, was not our usual fare.
But the cute little wooden pieces and the whole idea of working to gather carrots won us over.
By the end of our first session, we were already talking about Bunny Kingdom Town as a likely contender for our top-five two-player games of 2026.
About Author
Calvin Daniels is a Saskatchewan-born, self-taught journalist. He is currently Editor of Yorkton This Week, with 35-years in the newspaper business.
Bunny Kingdom Town
Usually, that means abstract strategy games, which are highly favoured, or card games. This week’s game was a significant step away from both.
Bunny Kingdom Town has players purchasing buildings that best suit their strategy and placing them in the best locations to grow their districts and earn more golden carrots. That’s what you score, and of course it fits nicely into the whole bunny theme.
Now, the bunny theme won’t work for everyone. In fact, Trevor and I noted the oddity of two guys close to 60 sitting around developing “bunny towns.”
But forget the theme for a moment. This is a game from one of the most notable game designers of the last 50 years, Richard Garfield.
Garfield is, of course, famous for Magic: The Gathering, a game which, when launched in 1993, was hugely innovative and led to a flood of collectible card games, most of them short-lived and long forgotten.
Bunny Kingdom Town is nothing like MtG, but you can tell a designer with some pedigree was likely involved.
There is a lot going on here, with in-game scoring as well as end-game goals worth additional points. You add one of these goals each turn.
As you add properties, you also trigger effects based on what you already have in play and how those properties are situated in relation to one another. There are lots of icons here, so while everything is easy enough to follow, expect repeated rulebook checks during your early plays.
They suggest about 30 minutes for a game, but I would block out closer to an hour for those first few sessions.
The variety created by all those different icon powers also increases the replay possibilities massively.
The synergies can lead to some huge point scores as well.
In our first game, Trevor jumped out to a solid early lead, and we were talking about how a comeback seemed unlikely based on what we could see.
Then I stumbled into a play with multi-icon synergy, scored something like 40 points in one shot, and ended up winning.
The fact that you can claw your way back into contention is a big plus in a game like this.
In the end, this one from publisher IELLO, and available in Canada through ilo307.com, was not our usual fare.
But the cute little wooden pieces and the whole idea of working to gather carrots won us over.
By the end of our first session, we were already talking about Bunny Kingdom Town as a likely contender for our top-five two-player games of 2026.
About Author
Calvin Daniels
Calvin Daniels is a Saskatchewan-born, self-taught journalist. He is currently Editor of Yorkton This Week, with 35-years in the newspaper business.
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