Game Nights- Let’s get Vil­lain­ous

Last time on Game nights we dis­cussed the charm­ing game of Ad­ven­ture Mart, To­day I must ask a ques­tion. Do you use antlers in all your dec­o­rat­ing? is one of your mot­tos
“Be Pre­pared”? Do you have friends on the other side? Are you the great­est crim­i­nal mind? Then per­haps you want to try Dis­ney’s won­der­ful free for all “Vil­lain­ous”. This game has been the only game night my co­hosts and I have played at least six times since we did our first test game. 

Let’s first start with the boxes and pieces. Each piece is a lov­ingly crafted de­sign where you can tell al­most at a glance which Dis­ney Vil­lain each piece rep­re­sents. Each box also uses well done shad­ows and sil­hou­ettes to show the main vil­lain that rep­re­sents each ex­pan­sion. 

Now how to play is in­ter­est­ing, you take the role of a pop­u­lar Dis­ney Vil­lain from across the mul­ti­ple movies, and when I say mul­ti­ple, I mean MUL­TI­PLE! From the re­nais­sance vil­lains of Ja­far, Ur­sula and Scar to the clas­sic princess vil­lains of Malef­i­cent or the wicked step­mother of Cin­derella to even Un­knowns such as Prince John, Rat­ti­gan and the Horned King. Each vil­lain plays dif­fer­ently and has a dif­fer­ent end goal, where you need to send hench­men, use items or spells, and slowly get your grand plans in place. How­ever, Vil­lainy is a com­pe­ti­tion, and your fel­low vil­lains are want­ing to sab­o­tage you by spin­ning the webs of fate in their fa­vor. 

Each board is sep­a­rate from the other play­ers, but peo­ple can use cards in your own deck against you by set­ting up traps, caus­ing set backs, or even send­ing goody two shoe he­roes to get in your way. This is an­other game where friend­ships are tested, al­liances formed, bro­ken, mended, then bro­ken all over again in a back­stab­bing con­test for the ages. 

The main ap­peal to this game is just how dif­fer­ent each vil­lain plays, adding dif­fer­ent pieces to their own boards, hav­ing cer­tain rules changed from the base rules, or how their cards in­ter­act with your unique end goal. The ex­am­ple I used is Cruella De Ville, who needs to find and cap­ture 99 pup­pies with her hench­men. she gets her own unique pieces show­ing pup­pies you can find and cap­ture with the help of your two bum­bling lack­eys. It turns into a mad dash across the board, try­ing to find ways to catch the dogs, with­out your ri­vals find­ing ways to ruin your plans to get a new coat. 

Barry, my first Co-host had this to say about the game. “Eas­ily the most unique and En­gag­ing game I’ve per­son­ally ever played. Would def­i­nitely rec­om­mend, and my nos­tal­gia was through the roof the WHOLE game!” Barry cared for the games com­plex­ity as well as the art, gush­ing about all the tiny ref­er­ences each card held. 

Kevin echoed this by say­ing “The games re­quires strat­egy, the abil­ity to bluff, and keep your­self from look­ing threat­en­ing in or­der to not grab at­ten­tion from other play­ers who could sab­o­tage your vic­tory, all wrapped up in the mem­o­rable and nos­tal­gic love of Dis­ney Char­ac­ters.” 

And that’s the thing, this game is a love let­ter to fans of Dis­ney. We spent all night when play­ing dis­cussing our fa­vorite films, mo­ments, sang badly to the movie songs. It was a game of com­ing to­gether, while also be­ing ut­ter mon­sters. We only played us­ing Dis­ney, but there are also ones based on the Mar­vel or Star Wars, but that re­ally did not seem like a thing we wanted to look at. The rules were too dif­fer­ent and added too many ways to lose it seems. 

Would I rec­om­mend Vil­lain­ous? Of course I would, it’s a fun romp through your child­hood. It’s a time cap­sule for films you likely grew with. This has been Game Nights, and re­mem­ber. Drink Wa­ter, Call your friend, and keep strong, we’re nearly halfway done the se­mes­ter!