Review: Villagers

It takes a village…and when there aren’t that many people to do it, it literally takes the whole village to get the job done! You are the founder of this new little town trying to restart after the great plague. With less people around, we need to all work together to get the jobs done. If you can find the right combinations, your village will be the best and most prosperous!

Villagers is a new game from Sinister Fish designed and illustrated by Haakon Hoel Gaarder. It was a successful Kickstarter project that has just moved to retail. The game is played over several rounds, collecting gold at two different Market phases. The winner is whoever has collected the most gold into their village by the end of the game!

Game Setup

There are a set of starting Villagers that are placed in the middle of the table creating the Road. Each player is given a Founder card along with 8 gold to start. A Village Square marker is placed in your personal Village. All cards are shuffled into a main deck and then 6 face down stacks are placed above each starting Villagers in the Road. Each stack will start with twice the cards as the number of players. A first and second Market card is added as well to the second and sixth stacks. Each player receives 5 cards to start.

Gameplay
The game moves from each player over several rounds until all the cards that cover a Market are revealed, then a Market phase is played. So gameplay is:

-Draft Phase
-Build Phase
-(If applicable, Market phase)

This will repeat until the end of the second Market phase signaling the end of the game. The Village with the most coins collected is the winner!

In the Draft phase, players take turns adding villagers from the Road into their Village square. Once each player has draft the appropriate amount of Villagers that they have food for the Road is updated. Emptied stacks are no longer used. New Villagers come in from the reserve and villagers left gain a coin.

In the Build phase, players take turns placing the villagers from their hands in to their Villages. Once a villager is placed, you cannot place it again. Each player can place 2 Villagers and one more for each Builder they have in their collection. Some of your Villagers are part of a Production Chain that will require them to have certain Villagers under them or can allow for others to be placed on top of them, depending on the printed order. Each of the first Villagers in a chain can have two branches start from them as well.

Different effects will also happen, such as unlocking Padlocks on cards to allow you to play them, acquiring Basic Villagers to add to your bases and playing Special Villagers that can act like a wild or give you one-time bonuses.

Once the Build Phase has ended, you start the next Draft Phase unless a Market Phase card is triggered. During the Market Phase, players will earn as much gold in cards showing on printed Villagers in their Village. Silver symbols do not score this round. The second Market Phase is going to be the same except the Silver symbols will score coins as well. At the end of the Second Market Phase, the game ends and the player with the most coins is the winner!

Impressions:

What could be better

2 players. I really didn’t care for the two player version of this game. It felt like once a player grabbed a few high-money cards it was swinging their way quickly. It also seemed too easy to grab exactly what you needed to get there. It was hard to bury or prevent the other layer from getting what they needed. Definitely recommend this with a higher count than 2.

Game board. Or truly, the lack of one. A small board would be nice to designate the positions of the cards on the road. As some of the stacks depleted we found it was also causing us to unintentionally shorten the bottom Road.

What I liked

Design/Art. The graphic work on here-although simple, is very cute and quirky. The characters are colorful and really pop off the card-the eyes on most of them are hard to forget as well! It may be a minimalist art design, but I really like this one.

Speed. This is a quick game for sure-you can sit down and teach it to a new group and move right into playing it pretty quickly. The ease of set up and tear down is great also.

Drafting. This game drafts out real smooth. The way it transitions from draft to play then score the cards is exactly what I would want in a simple draft game and this one delivers. The symbology is minimal, the wording on the cards easy to understand.

Overall

Villagers packs a fun game in a smaller sized box, giving players a chance to experience some of the best parts of a card drafting system. The game is smooth, the art fun to look at and the ease of entry very reasonable. If you enjoy a good set collection game with a drafting mechanic behind it, then Villagers may be just the right game for you. If you are looking for a game that is quick on set up and game play but not light on mechanics, then Villagers may be just the game for you. For whatever the reason, make sure you give it a try and let us know what you though of it!