Ravensburger Disney Villainous Introduction to Evil Household Technique Board Sport with Unique Disney Lorcana TCG: Shimmering Skies Promo Card for Ages 10 and Up

Great for first time players
Great addition to the ever growing Villainous universe. Game rules are slightly tweaked to make it easier for first time players.

Great Family Game
Totally honest, I bought his product for the Lorcana promo card inside since I already owned the villaneous game in the past, its a really fun and family friendly game and really puts you in the disney mood.

When being bad is good
I was excited to see this game become available. I had seen Villainous before of course, but not being a huge Disney fan, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to jump into one of the game’s big boxes. (I am a Star Wars and Marvel fan, but am already oversaturated with great games in those worlds.)What Ravensburger has done here is taken “Villainous: The worst takes it all” and reduced it in size, price, and content. Whereas the original had six characters to play, this one has four (keeping Captain Hook, Maleficent, Ursula, and Prince John and losing Jafar and The Queen of Hearts). And to entice Lorcana players, the initial printing of the game comes with an exclusive Lorcana card.This makes it perfect for me. I only need four characters to find out if I like the game, and to play with the four members of my family. And as it turns out, I do like the game!There are countless summaries of how the game operates, but briefly, you choose a Disney villain and set in front of you a playing board with four locations from that villain’s world/movie. I was mostly familiar with the ones in this set, but the family did re-watch Disney’s Robin Hood, and I’m glad we did.You have two decks of cards, which can be described as helpful ones (the villain deck) and harmful/annoying ones (the fate deck). The location board and these cards brilliantly evoke the characters and events of the movies. Coded to each of the locations in front of you are a series of actions. Each turn you get to choose one of these locations to move to, using a very artistic playing piece, enabling you to take each of the actions visible there. Reminiscent of the board game Scythe, you cannot remain in your current location and take the same actions two turns in a row, you must move to a new space. The actions allow you to do different things, including playing cards.Villain cards will often have a cost in power tokens – you start the game with two and will accumulate more over the course of time. Power tokens are kept in a neat plastic cauldron, adding to the overall Disney flavor. You may also play a Fate card, against an opponent. Fate cards mostly represent the heroes of the opponent’s story. They can remove some of the available actions for each location (literally, by sitting on top of them) and menace villains by having ongoing effects and being difficult to remove. Villain cards often represent henchmen and tools that are also played to the board, and can remove those pesky heroes.Most importantly, each villain (player) has a unique goal to achieve to win the game – this can involve moving cards to certain locations or gathering power tokens, for example. Once a player achieves that goal, the game is over and they have won. This makes the game highly asymmetrical; although the actions on the playing boards are the same for all players, they are in different locations (and some are on villain cards), all the cards are unique, and also of course, is the art and theme. The designer’s goal in all asymmetrical games is to make sure there is balance – that there is a level playing field for each player. I am sure a lot of time was spent to assure this was the case, and as far as I can tell, each player is equally likely to win. One can only imagine how much play testing there must have been for the Villainous system, given all the compatible expansions for the game.So is it fun? Yes. The overall feeling I get is that I am trying to complete a puzzle, with constant roadblocks being placed in my way by other players. I feel removed from the other players in that we all exist in our own universe, and even when a player “attacks” me with a fate card, it is confined to my play area. This “take that!” element of interactivity may not be for everyone. But overcoming the impediments and making it to the end feels extremely satisfying. And the brilliant way the game recreates a Disney movie world for each player is brilliant. This makes it a MUST for any Disney fan who enjoys tabletop gaming. Maybe I’ll try one of those Marvel sets after all!

great game, especially for disney fans
This is an interesting game where you’re playing as the villains (in this case from disney movies), and trying to enact the plans of those villains from those stories. It’s a pretty fun mechanic, and changes things up enough to be interesting.It’s also very heavily laden with disney characters and stories and iconography, which is a nice touch if you’re into disney. If you know someone that really likes disney and also likes board games, well, they probably own this already. But if they don’t, they should.In terms of complexity, it’s on the simpler side, and kids of the right age would probably pick it up depending on how much board game experience and general smarts they have. Definitely geared toward older ages at the core though. Fine for adults.