Ever since finishing Dorfromantik: Sakura, the other half has been pining for a cosy, co-op adventure. Step up Cozy Stickerville, it’s cosy, it has stickers and will have you creating the quaint village of your dreams. Grab some friends, grab a cuppa and let’s sticker……..
Shhhhh….. Spoilers
I will try and keep this review as vague and spoiler-free as possible. I feel games like this live and die by the surprises and content you discover and Cozy Stickerville is chock-full of em. Even the photos I have taken are from very early on; everything in this game should be discovered when you play it and I will try my hardest to keep it that way.
The Narrative
You have moved house and have a letter from your father, which, I will be honest with you, is a little scathing. He is sick of us living off his fortune and he wants us to work hard and make a life for ourselves, even though he expects us to fail. You and up to 5 players can build your village using stickers and must balance resource management and choices to design a happy, thriving community.
No loss, but Lots of Consequences
Cozy Stickerville has no loss condition, similar to Dorfromantik, a game we really enjoyed; it's more about the journey. The decisions you make will have both positive and negative effects and truly shape your village. Yes, there are in-game metrics and yes, you know when you're doing well or not but there is no game over and no failure, which is well, cozy!
This game is like a sticker-based, choose-your-own-adventure game full of twists, turns and interesting things to uncover. It was a pure joy to ponder through and making interesting decisions about the course we should take with our village was always rewarding. We became really attached to our village and its inhabitants. We felt truly responsible for their happiness and the general state of what we were creating. To care about a little sticker-based board game village this much is high praise indeed!
Turns and Years
Cozy Stickerville is played over 10 years, that's in-game years, not real ones. Each year takes about 30-ish minutes and has quite a bit of gameplay to get stuck into. We normally played 1 or 2 years at a time and felt like that was a decent enough session but at the same time, it always left me wanting more.
Each year starts with a setup phase. In the setup, you normally gather resources depending on the state of your village. Wood for your trees, food for your various food-producing features and other stuff later in the game. Shhhh…… spoilers. Each year starts with a boon of resources and how you use them throughout the year will determine how successful you are.
Once you have collected your valuable resources, you shuffle the deck for your current year and you are ready to go. There is a small deck of cards for each year; these cards give you choices and events to move through, shaping your village as you go. Each card gives you a choice and each choice comes with various outcomes, some positive and some negative. Some reward you with resources, some cost resources and it's a constant balancing act to keep things in check.
Your Action
After choosing the outcome of your card, you must take an action. These actions can be from previously revealed cards or stickers on your village map. These actions will normally lead to further story sections from the story book or even more stickers being added to your village. These stickers can be new buildings, covering previous stickers with story developments or even adding further features on top of what you have already created, like animals, roads or fences.
We found that choosing the right option at the right time was paramount. Having cash at the right time or furthering the right story thread at the right moment could either be amazing or put a stopper on your current plans. What we loved about Cozy Stickerville is that even when things don’t work out, the negative effects are never punishing or detrimental; it just means revisiting the action again at a later date when you have the required resources. Nothing too dramatic at all.
Milestones and Happiness
As you complete certain tasks or fulfil certain story beats, you will be awarded with differing levels of milestone stickers. They are like achievements, both good and bad. Not only can they offer you small bonuses here and there but also, certain parts of the story and various cards reference them. So, looking down this list not only reminds you of what kind of game you have had but also offers some lasting consequences to your choices. It’s a great little system.
The happiness track is made up of heart stickers; it tracks your citizens' happiness and links into all the other systems in the game. It is often referred to by other cards as a prerequisite check before you can do something. You can't be making big changes to your village if it's full of unhappy cretins now, can you?
A Quaint Box of Joy
Everything about Cozy Stickerville is, well, cosy. It's bright, colourful and has a quaint cartoony art style that harkens back to the cartoons of my youth. The cards are of a thick, quality cardboard stock and the board is very well made. There’s even a little tuckbox to store your currently ‘in-play’ cards and resources, making future sessions breezy to set up.
I have no issues with any of the presentation, components or graphical design, it's a beautiful and well-made game with a very fitting art style. It also contains a very well-written narrative that is interesting, while keeping things light and enjoyable for all.
Final Thoughts
If you are in the market for an adorable, easy-going co-op game, then just buy this. I have nothing negative to say at all, which is very rare indeed. It is beautifully made, so much fun and I looked forward to discovering more every time I opened the box. The story threads are interesting, as are some of the activities you perform. I just wish there was more of it. You can play it twice, once on each side of the map and I think I will save my second playthrough for later in the year. I can't wait.
Also, let’s be honest, who does not love stickers….. No-one!
