In Downtown, you and your opponent are real-estate tycoons bidding for property in the city’s bustling, prosperous business district. From a standard deck of cards, one player takes the red cards and the other the black cards. Most cards represent checks used to invest in intersections; when a city block is surrounded, whichever player has invested the most in the surrounding intersections claims ownership in it. Court cards have special effects. At the end of the game bonuses are awarded for buildings adjacent to public buildings and the park, buildings in specific patterns, having multiple buildings from a set, and buildings adjacent to a bonus intersection determined during the game.