Village Pillage is a fast, fun game of negotiation and simultaneous play.
Each turn, play a card against each of your neighbors. All cards are revealed simultaneously, and have a different effect depending on what they’re played against. Farmers always gain turnips, which Raiders steal...unless blocked by a Wall!
Tania’s art is gorgeous, the gameplay is super fun, and we’re all really excited to share it with you. There’s a free print-and-play on the page, as well as several reviews (including one that just went up last night, from Bower’s Game Corner).
We’re putting together a group of playtesters for our upcoming games - including upcoming games in the Dracula’s Feast line! If that sounds like something you might be interested in, just email [email protected] and we’ll add you to the group.
You get to see our games months before they’re more widely released, help us improve them, and get free copies for helping out!
That’s all for now! I hope you’re enjoying Dracula’s Feast, and I hope you jump onboard for the upcoming Jellybean Games. Our goal is to fill your life with fun, gorgeous games!
Cheers, -Peter C. Hayward Pillaging villages since 2015
Want to help playtest a new social deduction game?
about 6 years ago
– Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 12:31:03 AM
Hey!
The rest of our Dracula's Feast stock has (finally) arrived from China - this means that if your copy was missing any components or had any damage, this is the time to tell us!
If you think you’re missing the 9 basic character cards, look in the envelopes. That’s where they’re packed! (We learned our lesson from this, and won't be doing that again! So many emails...)
Here’s a complete list of what you should have received:
Dracula's Feast
•9 red envelopes
•9 Guests (check inside the envelopes)
Alucard
Boogie Monster
Beelzebub
Doctor Jekyll
Dracula
Trickster
Van Helsing
Werewolf
Zombie
•4 Advanced Guests
Bride of Dracula
Captain Bluebeard
Magic Mirror
Swamp Thing
•13 Accusation cards (one for each of the basic and advanced guests)
•20 Reference cards (10 covering the basic guests, 10 covering the advanced guests)
As you know, Dracula’s Feast was designed because of a few issues I have with many social deduction games. Player elimination, the need for a narrator, victory by shouting...and, if I’m being totally honest, I way prefer individual victories to winning as part of a large team.
(Current theory is that I wasn’t given enough cuddles as a child)
Dracula’s Feast and its upcoming sequels are designed to fix that problem, but I’ve also been working on another game which addresses the same issues. It’s called Werewolves of Wall Street, and it's a co-design with Nick Wolf*.
*Yes, that is his real name.
There are two types of roles - stockbrokers and werewolves. At the start of the game, you’re given a role: each player is either a bloodthirsty monster, hellbent on destroying society to quench their ever-growing hunger...or a werewolf!
The werewolves know who each other are, the stockbrokers only know their own identity, and the game begins!
Have you ever played a social deduction game where you know - you just know - that your buddy Holly is a werewolf? Isn’t it frustrating when no one believes you?
In Werewolves of Wall Street, you can put your money where your mouth is! Each round, players bid on who they think is a werewolf and who they think is a stockbroker. One or two players (depending on player count) are then placed under investigation - if they’re a stockbroker, there’s no effect...but if they’re a werewolf, they’re caught for insider trading.
(Werewolves are notorious insider traders.)
At the end of the game, players add up their money - correct bids are worth a bunch of cash, incorrect bids are worth nothing. The werewolves pool their money and win as a team (ignoring any money from werewolves under investigation) and the stockbrokers win individually.
That’s it! It’s super fun, it’s coming to Kickstarter in a few months, and we’re looking for people who are interested in blind playtesting it for us.
If you’re keen to get your hands on this game early (and help us make it better/make sure it’s balanced), send an email to [email protected]* - we offer a free copy of the game to anyone who records their group learning and playing the game for the first time, or anyone who plays it with their group 10 times and sends us the results.
*my email address is almost as cool as Nick's name
(The playtesting won’t start for a few weeks, so don’t panic if you don’t hear a response from me straight away!)
That’s all for this update! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Thanks so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Vampires, werewolves, and stockbrokers, oh my!
P.S. In each of these updates, I like to link to a currently-running Kickstarter. This week, it’s the latest Jellybean Game - Show & Tile!
Show & Tile is a creative party game for 3-6 players. It’s by Isaac Shalev and Matt Loomis, the creators of Seikatsu! Show & Tile is an endless replayable Pictionary-style game for everyone (including people - like me - who can’t draw!)
(and even if you're not interested in the game, definitely check out the comments: a limerick battle has broken out! The internet is a wonderful thing.)
All test packages have arrived, and all emails have been replied to!
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Dec 08, 2017 at 03:23:19 PM
Hey!
After we sent copies of the game to all our backers, we send four 'test' packages - one to me, one to Tom, one to Tania, and one to Nicole.
Mine arrived on Thursday! That means that we're going to start resending backer orders, because they should definitely have arrived by now.
Nicole spent the night collating and replying to emails (she's a night owl):
If you sent us an email, you should have received a reply by now.
If you haven't received a reply, please send a new email to [email protected] with your backer number and address. If you haven't heard back within a week or two (Nicole is in charge of 100% of the emails, and she's only one woman!) then send us a message on Kickstarter so we can work out why your email hasn't come through.
This is the last update I'll be posting about this - about 3-4% of packages went missing in the mail, which is obviously higher than we'd like, but it's not unreasonable for a mailout of this size. (If you're in that 3%, I'm sure that's not much consolation!)
The new shipments will all have tracking numbers, and Nicole will be sending those out to everyone as the packages get in the mail.
Again, just to be clear - every email has been replied to, so if you haven't heard back, get in touch: [email protected]
If you have any questions about the process, please let me know! I'm excited to get those last few packages to their owners. :)
That's all for this week! Now that the game is printed, shipped, and all replacement shipments are being sent, I'm going to start winding down updates on this project! You'll still hear from me if there's any exciting Dracula's Feast news (such as, for example...a sequel ;) but that won't be on any kind of schedule.
It's been such a great ride, and I want to thank all of you for joining me for it. I've learned so much as a designer and publisher, and Jellybean Games has learned a lot about our processes and system that we'll be applying to every project going forward.
One final reminder - if you've had a chance to play your copy of the game, we'd love to hear your thoughts! We have a BoardGameGeek.com pagewhere you can rate the game and (optionally) leave a review. The more ratings we get, the higher the chances of people getting exposure to this game that I'm so incredibly proud of.
Also, if you have any rules questions, the forums there are the best place to ask them! I check it every few days, and by posting it publicly, you can help anyone else who runs into the same problem.
Thanks so, so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward It's been a helluva ride!
The time to email is now!
over 6 years ago
– Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 08:00:55 PM
Hey!
As of today, three of our four “test packages” have arrived. After the last few orders were sent, we mailed out a copy of the game to Tom, Tania, Nicole, and myself - everyone but me has received their copy, and I'm expecting mine to get here in the next few days.
From the comments and messages we’ve been receiving, it sounds like almost all our wonderful backers* have got Dracula’s Feast, and are enjoying the gorgeous art and the fun gameplay. Woo hoo!
*that’s YOU!
If you have not received your game:
Send us an email!
Email [email protected] - this is the direct email address for our Operations Manager, Nicole Perry. In order to get the replacement copy out, we need the following information:
Your backer number! This lets us find you in the Backerkit and make sure we send the correct items.
The address you expected the packages to arrive to! This is so that we can try to work out why the original copy never came.
The address you need the replacements sent to! If you haven't changed address, just say “To the same address” or similar.
Right now, we’re going to collect the information and prepare the replacements. Before we send them out (and the timeline on this will vary, depending on where you are and what you ordered) we’ll send a follow-up email to make sure that the details are still current, and that your package hasn’t arrived since we last heard from you.
All you need to do is email us with the above information, and we’ll take care of it from there!
If you have received your game:
Hoorah! I hope you're enjoying it. Once you've played the game, you can help us out by leaving a review on BoardGameGeek, introducing the game to your friends, or posting on social media under the #draculasfeast hashtag!
Don't forget, we made a series of "how to play" videos on our YouTube channel, just in case you found anything confusing or unclear. :)
I touched on this in the most recent update, but this is the last project we’ll be fulfilling with Send From China - all the upcoming Jellybean Games projects are going to be mailed directly from the US of A!
That’s all for today! Thanks a bunch to everyone who’s let us know that their copy arrived. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Thank you so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Excited for everyone to get their game
P.S. In each of these updates, I like to link to a currently-running Kickstarter that I think you might enjoy! This week, it’s Kids on Bikes by Jonathan Gilmour and Doug Levandowski.
My husband and I are 3 episodes away from the end of Stranger Things season 2, so this Kickstarter could not have had better timing. They’ve been blowing through stretch goals every day, and there’s only a few hours left - Check it out!
Your game is on its way!
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Nov 08, 2017 at 10:48:31 PM
Hey!
Firstly - and I’m sure we can all agree, most importantly - it’s my birthday! Happy birthday to me! This momentous occasion comes about roughly once a year, and it always takes me by surprise.
This year is the big three-oh, which is pretty rad. I've never been thirty before!
Thus far: I approve.
Secondly, as promised, here's a picture of my Halloweenian efforts:
I carved a pumpkin!
Thirdly: fulfillment!
It’s hard to gauge exactly how many games have arrived: people will leave a comment when they don’t receive it, but not update us when they have. My cousin Gavin (hi Gavin!) sent a message asking when he could expect it, and then two days later it arrived in the mail:
Here’s what we do know:
Every day, we get messages from people who have received their games. They’re definitely still arriving! If yours isn't there yet, it will likely be there soon.
The test copies sent to me, Tania, Tom, and Nicole haven’t arrived yet. None of them! They were the last four sent; once those have all arrived, we’ll know it’s time to start sending replacements.
The games are arriving in great shape. I think we’ve had a total of 3 or 4 damaged boxes; considering we mailed almost 5000 copies, that’s amazing.
People are very much enjoying the game!
At this stage, there’s nothing we can do to expedite the shipments. Believe me, it's as frustrating for us as it is for you! We’ve sent out all the tracking numbers purchased through Backerkit (if you didn’t get yours, email me on [email protected] and I’ll get it to you as soon as possible) and now all we can do is wait.
I’m going to be honest - I'm more than a little disappointed by the rate at which games are arriving. When we fulfilled Scuttle! using Send From China, there were a few stragglers, but 90% of the late arrivals were packages sent to Canada (where currently reside).
I’d hoped that by adjusting how they shipped games to Canada, all the games would land at roughly the same time. This doesn’t seem to be the case, so Nicole and I have made a big decision: this will be our last campaign using Send From China. Yes, SFC theoretically means we don't have to wait 6 weeks for the game to freight across the ocean, but the frustration of some people getting their game within a few days and others waiting for weeks on end just isn’t worth it.
I’ll keep you updated on what games arrive when, but in the meantime, all I can do is ask for your patience.
On the plus side, everyone who’s played Dracula’s Feast has been loving it. I promise, the game is worth the wait! I’ve seen multiple people compare it to Coup (or Clue), and we’re shooting up the rankings at BoardGameGeek.com.
This game spent several years in development, and it’s extremely satisfying to see all that effort pay off.
PAX Unplugged
In one week from today, I’m heading to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. I’m planning on spending the majority of my time in the free play area, testing future Jellybean Games. Come find me! I’m almost certainly going to be the only blue-bearded Australian there.
I'll be running the next two Jellybean Games - Village Pillage and Show & Tile, as well as some final playtests for Ninjitsu!, and a handful of other games to boot.
That's all for this week! If you have questions about anything, please let us know in the comments.
Thank you so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Pretty much always the only blue-bearded Australian in the room.
P.S. In each of these updates, I like to link to a currently-running Kickstarter I think you might enjoy. This week, it’s Root: the latest from Leder Games, this is an asymmetrical game of woodland creature adventures.
The previous game from Leder, Vast: The Crystal Caverns, is one of the finest things I’ve ever bought, and I’m expecting great things from Root as well.
The creator has been doing a fascinating series of Designer Diaries; if you enjoyed the Dracula’s Feast diaries, definitely check them out!
