Village is one of those forgotten games that you don’t really hear people talk about, which is suprising, because it’s easily as capable as any of the big hits of its era. If this synopsis video intrigues you, check out my How to Play Village video to learn more.

(click to view transcript)

Hi! It’s Ryan from Nights Around a Table, and this is Village, a worker placement game for 2-4 players with a twist! Here’s The Deal:
You and your friends play families going about their lives in a quaint German hamlet. Generations of your family will live and die throughout the game, getting jobs, serving on council, selling goods, and venturing to neighbouring villages, all with the hope of making a name for themselves in either the village chronicle, or the church. The game ends when either the chronicle or the potter’s field are filled with dead meeples, and then you count up each family’s prestige points to see who’s won.
Each player starts with a little farmyard with four first-generation family members and a bit of money. At the beginning of every round, the different worker placement slots on the common game board are seeded with these influence cubes, which are a currency that let you do different things. There are also some black plague cubes which shorten the lives of your family members with no benefit. You have a time marker that runs the periphery of your farmyard. Time itself is a currency in the game. Whenever your marker loops all the way around and passes the bridge… one of your family members dies.
i called this a worker placement game with a twist. The twist is that on your turn, you have to choose one of the placement slots from the main board, and take a cube from it. Then, you may activate the space, which may involve placing one of your family members there. So the actual worker placement is optional, but taking a cube is mandatory. Once all of the cubes have been taken from the board, the round ends. Then there’s a special phase where you call mass at the church. The spaces are re-seeded with cubes according to player count, and a new round begins.
Well, does it sound interesting? If you want to learn more about the rules of the game, click the link at the end of this video or in the description below to watch my complete How to Play video, which includes the overview segment you just watched. And if you like what i’m doing, click the badge to subscribe, and the bell to get notifications. And now, we dance!

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Village is a great pick if you like worker placement games, but aren’t interested in tackling something more complex, like Anachrony or Agricola. If you shop using the Amazon link below, i’ll receive a small commission.

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