Villagers - Card drafting & village building for 1-5 players
Created by Dave Clarke - Sinister Fish Games
The official Villagers pre-order store. Draft and build a tableau of villagers to create the most prosperous village. A little game that feels like a much bigger one!
This store closes on 10/16!
Pre-order now to get substantial discounts.
Pre-order the game and get the expansion pack FREE ($10 value)!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Villagers: Shifting Seasons
almost 3 years ago
– Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 07:13:15 PM
Hello villagers!
Please don't adjust your set - this is an update coming from the 2018 Villagers campaign, not the new one. Did I mention we have a new campaign running right now? Well...
Villagers: Shifting Seasons is an inexpensive addition to Villagers that adds more variety and new features to the game without overloading it with complicated new rules. I'm delighted to tell you that the project funded in 65 minutes thanks to a huge wave of early backers who took us to over 3000 pledges in the first 24 hours! I'm sure many of you reading this have already backed, and for that we're very grateful!
To thank our supporters, every backer of Villagers: Shifting Seasons will get a free stretch goal pack with extra goodies that won't be in the retail version of the expansion.
We are also reprinting everything previously released for Villagers, including the wooden Coin Chest and the playmat, and we are adding a pack of custom printed Villagers card sleeves as well!
If you haven't had a look at the campaign yet, please do - we'd love for you to join us once again.
Villagers is expanding!
about 3 years ago
– Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 08:35:18 PM
Hello villagers!
I hope all is well with you. I come to you with exciting news (which you may have already heard if you're on our mailing list) - we're doing an expansion for Villagers!
Some of the new villagers we'll be meeting in Shifting Seasons.
Haakon has concocted a delicious mix of new goodies for us to feast on, so this Summer we'll bring Villagers: Shifting Seasons to Kickstarter. You can sign up for a launch alert here.
All the previously released content will be available too, including the Coin Chest and playmat.
As part of the expansion there's a new solo mode, and we've released the rules so you can play right away. The new "Monastery Mode" rules are here.
There's a rundown of some of the things you can expect from Shifting Seasons over on its BoardGameGeek page, here.
As we just did for Streets, we'll plant trees to try and overcompensate for the carbon emissions generated by the manufacture and distribution of Shifting Seasons. You can read more about our radical approach here.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll join us once again when we launch later this year.
Best wishes,
Dave & Haakon
Villagers at the Golden Geek awards!
almost 4 years ago
– Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 05:24:16 PM
Hey villagers!
I hope you're all well. Apologies for another update so soon after the last one, but this is a special case. I'll be brief, I promise!
I'm delighted to tell you that Villagers has been nominated for Best Card Game in the 2019 Golden Geek Awards! Final voting is now open so please consider voting for Villagers in the Card Game category, here.
Villagers news, and our next game!
about 4 years ago
– Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 01:07:24 AM
Hey there villagers!
It has been a while, and I hope you're keeping safe & well in these troubling times. Carly and I are securely ensconced at home with young James, and managing fairly well under lockdown.
The boy who grew up in a warehouse.
So, to business!
First, I'll update you on where we are with Villagers, and then tell you a bit about Streets, the upcoming release from Sinister Fish Games and Haakon Gaarder!
Playmats, Promo Cards, & Replacement Cards
If you pre-ordered a Villagers playmat and / or promo & replacement cards and have not yet received anything, please refer to this FAQ on our website. If you've already sent us a support request, please be patient with us and we will get back to you.
We will be offering the playmats and cards for sale again, but I can't say when. After speaking to the manager at the sorting office where all our mail is processed, I have decided not to put any extra pressure on them as they are already working flat-out, and these are hardly essential items. I'll review this as & when life returns to something resembling normal.
How do you say "Villagers"?
So you remember that game you Kickstarted back in 2018? Well, thanks to you, it's doing rather well!
In the BoardGameGeek rankings it's sitting comfortably in the top 1000 (currently 681). The English edition is on its third print run, and Villagers is now on sale in 7 different languages. The current list is: French, German, Polish, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Korean, with Japanese on the way. Here's some of them...
Villagers in Polish, French, Korean, Chinese, and German.
Coming soon is the Villagers Dice Tower promo pack, which is exclusive to Dice Tower Kickstarter backers for a few months, but we'll have them for sale on our website by the end of this year. See if you recognise anyone...
Golden Geek Awards 2019
Every year, BoardGameGeek runs the prestigious Golden Geek awards, where BGG members vote on their favourite games from the previous year. Villagers was released in 2019, and it's nomination time, so you can see where this is going ;-)
I'm allowed to campaign for our game, so campaign I will! If you feel like Villagers deserves a shot at Best Family Game, Best Card Game, or maybe Best Artwork & Presentation, then please cast your vote: https://boardgamegeek.com/geekawards/boardgame
I'm told that other games were also released in 2019, so you could nominate some of them too. After you've nominated Villagers, obviously.
Since Haakon's design & development work finished on Villagers, he's been working on a new game. He calls it a "spiritual successor" to Villagers. We call it Streets.
Streets is an easy-to-learn urban tile laying game where 1-5 players collectively build a city and invest in buildings to try and earn the most cash. The trick is to place buildings in the best position to maximise their value, and to earn bonus income from the growing crowds of hipsters, shoppers, parents, and tourists who are all looking for the next big thing.
Streets will debut on Kickstarter later this year, and you can sign up for a campaign launch notification here. Until then, feel free to join the Streets Community on Facebook and check out the BGG page.
We are still playtesting some "advanced" features of the game, so if you're familiar with Tabletop Simulator, maybe you could help? We will organise online playtest sessions via the Facebook group, and anyone who joins in will get their name printed in the Streets rulebook.
Enough talk. Here's an exclusive first look at some of Streets' beautiful building tiles...
Hipsters really like hanging out in yellow buildings. Or rather, they used to.
That giant pink shoe is FULL of tourists!
Can you remember shops? Hopefully this game will not end up as a historical simulation.
How does it play?
Mechanically, Streets is quite simple and can be taught in a few minutes. We've tried to give players enough options to make it interesting & satisfying without being overwhelming, and interactive without being mean.
Gameplay is straightforward; players take turns to place one building tile from a hand of three, putting an ownership sign in their player colour on each building they place. People (custom meeples) are placed on buildings according to the colour and number of icons at the bottom. Each person increases the value of the building it occupies.
Rows of up to five buildings form streets. When a street becomes enclosed at each end, every building on it is scored according to the valuation in its top right corner. After scoring, any people in the street try to move to buildings on streets that haven't been enclosed yet. For example, green people (parents) will try to move to green parent-friendly buildings, and yellow people (hipsters) will try to go to yellow hipster hotspots. Crowds of meeples grow as the game goes on, and so the stakes get higher and higher. Careful planning is important because the player who encloses a street gets to decide where those people move next.
Tourists paying homage to the giant shoe.
We're hoping to offer full colour printed meeples as well - most likely as a deluxe upgrade pack along with wooden money tokens. This will be finalised before the Kickstarter campaign, but for now, check out Haakon's super cute designs for Streets' hipsters, tourists, shoppers, and parents!
"Deluxe Edition" hipster, tourist, shopper, and parent :D
"Deluxe Edition" hipsters arguing about who discovered this place first.
We really hope you'll join us and help make Streets another fun & exciting journey - we can't do it without you!
And Finally...
We're working on two new wooden coin chests which many of you voted on in a previous update. Sooner or later we'll run a short Kickstarter campaign for a fantasy Treasure Chest, and a sci-fi Credit Crate. Fun, fun, fun!
There are more games in the works, but I like keeping secrets, so news of them can wait behind the door like a naughty cat, ready to mug your ankles when you least expect it.
Replacement Cards, Promo Cards, and a Playmat!
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 03:25:02 AM
Hello villagers!
Exciting news, we are now taking pre-orders for the Villagers Playmat, Promo Pack 1, and the (100% free of charge) Replacement Card Pack! These items are exclusivelyavailable from Sinister Fish Games, and will not be available in retail stores.
The Villagers Playmat is a colour printed 70x30cm (~27 x 12 inches) neoprene mat with rounded corners and stitched edges. It provides a place to organise all the cards on the road, plus space for the reserve, discard pile, and basic villagers. It includes the Replacement Cards and Promo Pack 1 as standard in the box for £20 (approx $25 / €23) including shipping to anywhere.
Promo Pack 1 introduces two copies of two new Solitary villagers: the Scribe and the Plower. They both offer new endgame scoring opportunities, and can be used at all player counts. Just shuffle them into your existing deck of villagers and play. Also included is the “missing” reminder card for the solo game, to help you learn the single player mode more easily. Promo Pack 1 costs £4 (approx $5 / €4.50) and comes with the Replacement Card Pack. Shipping to anywhere is included in the price.
Replacement Card Pack
The Replacement Card Pack contains 5 cards that correct errors on the Bed Builder, Priest, and End of Draft Phase cards from the first printing of Villagers. The Replacement Card Pack is included free of charge with all orders of the Promo Pack and the Playmat, and can be ordered on its own completely free of charge with free shipping.
All items will be shipped untracked direct to customers from China. Delivery will take 7-20 days from the date of shipping. We expect shipping to commence in December for delivery in January, but if we can make it happen faster, we will.
Villagers on BGG
Thanks to your ratings, comments, photos, and forum posts, Villagers has climbed to #879 in the overall rankings on BoardGameGeek.com. That puts it in the top 0.5% of all tabletop games ever released, which is fairly mind-boggling. The Villagers forum on BGG is already a valuable resource for anyone with questions about rules and strategy, and we strongly encourage its continued use.
If you haven't yet rated the game, please do so here. We welcome all honest feedback, be it good, bad, or indifferent, because every comment potentially helps someone else make an informed purchasing decision. Just, you know, don't be too mean ;-)
Customer Support
If you never received your copy of Villagers, and you haven't contacted us already, please email [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
We're really sorry to anyone who had to wait a long time for us to respond to support requests. Carly is steadfastly ploughing through the support inbox on a regular basis, and we have shipped the vast majority of missing & returned pledges, and replacement parts.
Villagers "Revised Edition"
The first shipment of Villagers that went into retail distribution sold out very quickly, so we have ordered a second printing for retail. I mention it here because we are referring to the second and all subsequent printings as the "revised edition", which simply means that the misprinted cards have been corrected, and there have been a some small clarifications in the rulebook. All the cards and rules are the same as the Kickstarter edition that you received, so please don't think that we snuck a new & improved version out without telling you - it's the same game with the same content.
That's all for now - thank you once again for supporting Villagers on Kickstarter, you're the best!
