Advert: A copy of this game was gifted by Mason Williams PR on behalf of Asmodee UK. All opinions are our own.

You finally arrive at the small stretch of land off the beaten track, and look at your father’s letter again:

“You have lived off my fortune for far too long… it’s time for you to learn the value of hard work.
I am granting you a tract of land just south of Cheshire. It is empty and undeveloped, but with a little effort, you might just build something worthy of the family name…”

Key stats:

1 to 6 players
~30 minutes
8+ years

Publisher: Unexpected Games
Designer: Corey Konieczka
Graphic design: David Ardila, Paula González Delgado
Theme/category: Cozy, City building
Key mechanics: Co-operative, Narrative choices, Legacy game

Gameplay overview:

You start your Cozy Stickerville journey with a blank gameboard, a storybook, and a glorious pad full of stickers. Over the course of 10 games, you’ll sticker your way through a decade of life in the country, developing your own town and relationships as you see fit.

(I imagine it’s supposed to be based in Cheshire, USA, but personally I thought it was funnier to imagine we were developing a bit of English greenbelt up north)

On your turn, you draw an event card from the event deck to see what the morning has in store: it could be a narrative choice to make, or a new action card to put in play. Then the afternoon is up to you! Pick an available action on the map or any of the cards currently in play (shown by an hourglass icon) . Do you forage for resources, or build new homes or structures? Explore locations or visit neighbours? Or heck, you could even run for mayor, or hunt for long lost treasure!

After 12 event cards, the year is over and it’s time to resolve any end of year effects. Then if you want you can pause your playing, or move straight on to the next year. When you get to Year 10 that’s the end of the game and you’ll find out what kind of village you live in, and what kind of person you’ve grown to be.

Our first impressions

So we’ve played through all 10 years… and bloody loved every minute of the experience. Cozy Stickerville combines a narrative choice storybook, like Above and Below, with relaxing sticker fun. I don’t want to spoil too much of the specifics because discovery is part of the fun, but I was super invested for the whole playthrough and really sad when it ended. Luckily, the board is double sided so we’ll be making new friends and stickering new buildings all over again soon.

There’s no real long term strategy here, no tactical turns, you’re just taking each day as it comes and following the stories you want to follow. And this is a legacy game, so some decisions you make – like which people you invite to live in your village or which amenities to build – have consequences later on… some positive, some negative, but never anything with an overly punishing or long lasting impact. There’s no losing, no bad endings, but the final outcome will depend on which choices you make and what you choose to focus on. This is supposed to be an enjoyable, stress-free experience – and for us it was.

And there’s so many little touches we loved. There’s the cozy art, like the growing tree on the back of the event cards, or the animals you might unlock and place across your map. There’s humorous conversations to and consequences (depending on what action you take). For our playthrough we wanted to keep it rural and nature-loving, so a lot of our choices reflected that: shunning capitalism in favour of making positive choices for nature. In our next play through, we’ll be exploring different options to see how the story changes, like pursuing more urban development and fortune making.

You can take the game at your own pace, playing 1 or more years at a time. A little progress box is provided so you can store any cards and resources you currently have (they carry over each year). I even reckon you could even stop part way through a year and pick up where you left off fairly easily. If I could I would have played through the whole thing in one session. And while it’s better to play through the story with the same players, players can technically join or leave because the gameplay is quite communal. It just means more or less turns per player, and you might need to catch people up on the story so far. Although I don’t think it would work as well at the highest player counts – at 6 players you’d only have 2 turns each for the year and I’d be left wanting.

Obviously as a legacy game, where the gameplay is stickering itself, there is no replayability once it’s over. Well technically, because of the double sided board you can actually play Cozy Stickerville twice – some, but not all, options will be limited the second time depending on what stickers are still available (for example, if you invited Dill the Farmer in your first game, their sticker won’t be available for game 2). Personally, this doesn’t bother me because there is so much story to explore here, I’d want to follow the other threads anyway. But regardless, I’d estimate one full 10 year run through is AT LEAST 6-8 hours gameplay, so there’s at least 16 hours of gaming in the box. I would say that’s worth it, but it’s down to you and your gaming preferences.

And a small warning for the perfectionists: it can be quite tricky to place the stickers perfectly, and unless you’re playing solo you’ll likely be playing with others who might not be as neat as you. The guides are helpful but the stickers are slightly larger so you might not line things up exactly. We both seemed to struggle with the roads in particular. And sometimes it can be quite hard to see how the sticker was going to ‘land’ until it was too late. I think these stickers could have benefited from being a bit more resilient to peeling and re-sticking (I know it’s possible, my toddler has had sticker books that have taken much abuse!). It would help with helping things line up, and also make it easier on the few occasions you’re asked to remove stickers.

Cozy Stickerville came to us at the perfect time really; we’ve been having rough sleep with the toddler and struggled to have any energy or brainpower to get out a game. But Cozy Stickerville is so easy to set up and play. It’s engaging without  us needing to engage our brains just sitting down for a social game, making meaningful decisions for the direction of our village.  

Verdict:

Who knew there could be so much potential from one piece of folded cardboard! Cozy Stickerville is what it says on the tin: cozy, comfy, relaxing and fun! We loved it so much. It has the same cozy vibes as the Stardew Valley videogame – in fact more so than the actual Stardew Valley board game, which in our opinion lost some of the relaxed charm of the original.

Even with limited choices in the second playthrough, there are more choices and story threads for you to experience in 2 games, so you can bet we’ll be buying another copy to investigate every nook and cranny Cozy Stickerville has to offer. And we’d love to see more variations in future – Zombie Stickerville, anyone?