Tasty Minstrel Village Board Game

I am a pretty avid board-gamer, but I realize that everyone is not. So I like to have some games in my collection that meet that sweet spot between being simple enough for virtually anyone to play, and sophisticated enough to keep my interest up. I also like a great theme! For me, "Village" hits that perfect middle-ground, and in the best way. It combines interesting game mechanics, simple worker-placement, and a little bit of luck with a very aesthetically pleasing medieval village theme. Your goal is to be the most influential family in the history of the village, spanning several generations. In the game, you basically place your "family" members strategically on the board, while drawing colored cubes that represent different aspects of life. Timing is key, as your "older" family members eventually pass away and their deeds are recorded in the book of annals, provided they were among the first to achieve their position.Your family members can be church leaders, town administrators, farmers, artisans, or even world travelers. There is just enough luck, however, to make it so that no one can run away with the game, and best of all, you never really know who wins until the points are added up at the end. There are multiple strategies for winning, and it is easy to learn. A game plays in about 60-90 minutes... even faster as you gain experience playing it. The components are very well-made, and although the game recommends 12 years and up, I am confident that a ten-year-old can master this game fairly quickly. It's a winner in my book.

Village is a worker placement game for 2-4 players by Inka and Markus Brand set in Medieval Times. Players must raise a family and have them gain renown in the village chronicle. Family members pass away, new members are born, some become friars, where others become traveling minstrels. Players take turns taking resource cubes from an area and then performing the action corresponding to the area. Players use resource cubes and time as a currency to gain points, collect grain, oxen, horses, and more. Play continues until either every village chronicle space is taken, or the anonymous graves are full. Whoever has the most points wins.What sets Village apart from other worker placements is the ability to use time as a currency. The time marker is represented on your family board, and can often be used instead of resource cubes to gain points or place workers in the various village jobs. Once the time marker crosses the bridge on your board, the oldest family member passes away and is then placed in the Village Chronicle or an anonymous grave. Players can choose to use time in order to make the game go faster if they have a quick strategy. Using time is quite important in the game, because this is how you can get your family members honored in the Village Chronicle and thus get more points.There are many viable strategies to Village, which is why it has become one of my favorite worker placement games. One can have a family member travel and gain points that way, or become a friar in the church. One can run for public office or work with crafts. Every time I’ve played, it has been a different strategy that has won. This shows just how one must adapt as the game progresses and with the opponents’ choices.Because of the way the resource cubes are randomly set out on the board each round, players must plan ahead their actions. However, even with this planning, the game never feels too long. The time currency makes for shorter games, as eventually, the village chronicle or graves get filled up. This also helps with the replay value, because each game will be set up differently in where the resource cubes are placed. One may go straight for crafts because of the good resource cubes on it, instead of going to travel which may have plague cubes. Even though the resource cubes will all eventually get taken in a round, one would rather gain good resource cubes first, before they are gone.The only caveat I have with Village is because the resource cubes are not painted consistently, it has caused issues for colorblind players. Other than that, the artwork is nice, and the iconography is easy to understand. Because of the iconography, the game is not language dependent, which is especially helpful when playing with people from different language backgrounds.Overall, Village is a refreshing take on worker placements. The time currency makes players think hard about the optimal strategies, but not at the expense of analysis paralysis. The game itself is often played in about an hour, and never feels dull. One can play the game and try different strategies every game. The replay value is great, and the game pace is perfect. Highly recommended!

Village entertains both my husband and me very much! Our 9 yr old son is begging us to play with him (he watched us play once and thinks it looks super fun!). And, he's right. It is super fun.You essentially send your family members out into different areas of the "world". Then, you have to make choices on which people remain involved to get you things (which lead to Victory points) and which players, ever so sadly, die. It's strategic decisions that dictate who dies and when (also a way to get victory points is to strategically kill off your family members so they get a place in the village chronicles.....so, dying can equal loads of victory points!). Of course, it's difficult to sum up how to play a game like this ina review. The main point is, it's fun and it's different. We have a great time with this one!! I think the expansion (The Village Inn which is essentially a pub with some other extras) would be very fun! I look forward to getting that at some point.Play mostly 2 player. Probably takes somewhere between 1 and 1.5 hours to play, depending. And, not a terribly difficult learning curve. You do have to read the manual and have a trial game, of course, as is the case with all of these types of games.100% recommend Village!!Just an FYI...A few of our other favorites are Castles of Burgundy, Rialto, Tzolk'in, Dominion, London, Thurn and Taxis, Legacy, Seasons, 7 Wonders, Bora Bora, Keyflower, Le Havre...(ok, we have a lot of favorites!)...and we are eager to learn Trajan, Terra Mystica, Among the Stars, Puerto Rico, Shadows over the Empire and Euphoria. They are all in our collection, among others :)