We played Villainous at Compulsory Merriment yesterday. There are lots of Villainous versions; we started with the original, which features evildoers from classic Disney movies like Robin Hood, Snow White and Alice in Wonderland. Shall we just get this part out of the way? Mandi won, as is our custom, but Chris and I were both within one turn of winning for a change.
Each player chooses a Villain. Chris played Prince John; I played the Queen of Hearts and Mandi played Maleficent–a choice which should surprise no one. Each Villain gets their own player board, a 3D Villain token, plus decks of Villain and Fate cards. Every Villain has a different goal. You work on your nefarious plot by moving your Villain token around your player board and taking the actions available on each turn. You might gather power coins; you might spend that power to bring allies or useful items into play. You might also mess with another player by playing a Fate card. Fate cards are played on your opponents’ board if it’s part of your evil plan to thwart somebody else’s evil plan.
You can play Villainous as a well-mannered offender and just work on your own goals. Chris and I tried to do this. Prince John gathers power and all the poor Queen of Hearts wants to do is play a game of croquet– all while trying to stay out of the way of the maleficent Mandi. Since Mandi won, the moral of the story is probably this: use your Fate cards. The first Villain to reach their goal wins the game so it does help to give your opponents something to trip over along the way.
Villainous has three tracks: Disney movies, Star Wars and Marvel. Each series has its own rules and gameplay so they’re not mix ‘n match with each other but every Villainous game is an expandalone. You can play the expansion by itself or add it to other games within the same theme. We all liked the game and look forward to playing it again. Come try out your own hand at evildoing in our game room!
2-6 players, 45-120 minutes playtime, Ages 10+