Well, we just hit a milestone in this Blog. Today’s entry is #100. To be honest with you, I didn’t know if it would have lasted this long or not but I am sure that that it has.
For this week’s entry, we decided to switch up and play a new game that we had Kickstarted that came just in time for Chirstmas.
How excited are we about this game? Read on to find out more.
HAMLET: THE VILLAGE BUILDING GAME (2022)
When you think of a Village builder you sometimes think of card tableaux or static hex tile grids.
Think again!
Lots of buildings, all with different shapes, all fitting together in interesting ways.
One central Hamlet that the players contribute to, with its own self-forming demand and supply economy.
Villagers walking through the Hamlet, delivering food to households and building resources to construction sites.
And one day, the Church will finally be built, and the once-little Hamlet has become a fledgling town.
Who will be the biggest benefactor when that happens?
Including solo mode by Nick Shaw & Dávid Turczi
—description from the designer
Hamlet is a medium weight competitive village builder where players are communally turning their Hamlet into a bustling little town. In this tile placing game, players construct buildings that everyone can use to create materials, refine resources, earn money and make important deliveries to construct the Hamlet’s big landmark - the Church.
The game features irregular shaped tiles that connect together without a grid to form a village that is completely different every time. The tile placement organically creates interconnecting paths that the villagers use to transport resources across the village. This leads players to construct boards where no two games will ever feel the same. Since the buildings are communal, this also creates a fluid economy, where players are always working hard to provide the village with the resources that are most needed.
The game is designed by David Chircop (Petrichor, The Pursuit of Happiness). It plays between 1 to 4 players, with a solo mode currently being developed. It will be published by award winning studio Mighty Boards (Excavation Earth, Posthuman Saga).
Weight 2.85/5
Our Take on the Game
What we should address first are the three mechanics that are listed on BGG for the game which will help you to understand it a bit more. They are the following: Network and Route Building, Tile Placement, & Pick-up and Delivery.
Network and Route Building:
To efficiently move your materials using your donkeys as transporters you need build your routes from the buildings that are placed through the village you are creating. The buildings help you refine the raw materials (wood, wheat, and stone) into refined and high-quality materials (flour, milk, brick, and timber) all of which is needed for building more buildings and completing the Church.
How do you go about building said route? By laying tiles down.
Tile Placement:
Expanding your Hamlet into a sprawling town requires you to add more buildings. You do this through the network you have already established and using your donkeys to transport the goods from to your build location.
Where do you get the tiles? In the game the tiles are called “Blueprints” which you can get from the Townhall. Once you have the tile, you can build it on future turns if you have an established route to transport the goods.
Pick Up and Delivery:
As mentioned above you need to have a good network of donkeys to transport the goods. Beginning with where the good starts, you can pick up and transfer the good from donkey to donkey moving one space at a time until you reach the final destination spot.
This is the one aspect of the game that is unique because it doesn’t matter who made the goods because everyone can use them but to move the goods you need to use your own donkeys. So therefore you must, absolutely must, plan out well ahead how you are going to accomplish this.
How do we like it?
After only playing the game once we had decided that one game was not enough to understand all the rules and game play. We did enjoy the game and thought it was beautifully done with the exception of the 3D church in the Founders Edition (that could have been done better).
We loved the idea of the shared goods in which the person who made the good gets rewarded when it is used by anyone even if they made it themselves.
What also makes the game unique and enjoyable is the different shapes of tiles and how you are supposed to place them on the board. To us, this makes the game stand out from other tile laying games and drew our attention to it. Each game will have a completely different layout.
FAMILY GAMER VERDICT
We rate this game a 7 out 10.
This game will need to hit the table more in order for us to really give it either a higher or lower solid rating but for now, it is one that we found enjoyable after one play.
LETTER TALLY
A: 0 -
E: 0 -
G: 0 -
H: 1 – Hamlet: The Village Building Game
J: 0 -
K: 0 -
L: 2 - Long Shot: The Dice Game, Legendary Encounters: Firefly
R: 0 -
U: 0 -
Z: 0 -
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