Cozy Stickerville Game Review by Dale Yu

Designer: Corey Konieczka
Publisher: Unexpected Games
Players: 1-6
Age: 8+
Time: 30 min per year (10 years for full story)
Played with review copy from publisher

Go around the land, find secrets, and watch what happens to your town folks. Put together your town using over 800 stickers of homes, farms, stores, animals, and many other things. When your town gets bigger, you can fish, go into the mine, find love, and try other stuff.

Make your own history since your picks open new paths and can affect later plays. The spots you pick have special results, and each pick makes new chances in years ahead. Look around and learn as you help town folks with their own tales, fish, check the mine, and find secret things. This works for all kinds of folks.

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In Cozy Stickerville, you and friends make a town side by side. No one can lose, but your picks make changes that last and can help or hurt the town. You try to hit goals and get joy while making the town you want.

Every play, pull out the sticker book and card list. The story book sets up the year you play. If starting fresh, put some first stickers on your board. Each year has 12 event cards.

To play, take turns with two parts: morning where you pull an event card, then afternoon where you pick one thing to do. While playing, you get stuff like wood or food. All stuff sits in one shared pile for anyone to use.

The player whose turn it is picks what to do, but talk it over with others if you want.

In morning, take the top event card, read it out loud, and see what goes on. It might ask for a pick. After you pick, turn the card to see the result. In our play, someone else read the card so the picker did not peek by mistake. If the card stays out, slide it under the map to hide the front. Any player can use that in afternoon.

In afternoon, pick one thing to do. Look for the sand timer sign. It shows up on cards, stickers, and such. The sign next to it says what: pull a card, read from story book, or pick from choices on cards.

While you play, hit goals to add stickers to the map. Goals open more things to do. You can also get joy with small heart stickers that change the tale.

Keep taking turns till event cards run out. Then do end-of-year stuff on cards. You can start next year or put shared stuff and cards in the save box for next time.

After year ten, read one of five end tales. No win or lose, just see how your town turned out.

My take on this game

All right, I have not done the first year yet, but that does not stop my thoughts. Short version: I love it. But it is not really a game.

What do I mean? The rules say right up front there is no lose. By my idea of game, that makes it more like a fun thing to do. But what a fun thing! We did six or seven years, and my friends want to keep going with the tale. That hardly happens with stuff like this for us.

Start by picking from sticker pairs for the board. That kicks off some tales and saves others for later. Your picks shape what comes next, and you choose how to grow them.

You might add a family and spend time on their tale over many turns. Or skip them and do else. Up to you.

You get some basic stuff each year to build and start new tales. But sometimes you need turns to get more, so you see less story. Picks seem easy but hit later on, since events check past doings.

We played with five, and it went well. Each gets about 2.4 turns a year, but the whole tale keeps us in. We push the picker on choices. We pass around reading event cards, stickers, and story so all stay busy. Picker never reads to avoid peeks. No cheats here.

Funny, we each chase own tales. One wants marriage, so picks that. Another loves flowers, so that happens. No lose or win, but all five care a lot about our town and wait to play next.

Each year runs 30-40 minutes, so first full play is six hours. Box has enough for two plays, about 12 hours total. Can’t replay after, but that is good time for today. We have a great time with this fun thing, and I wait to stick more on the board and grow town.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers