Minecraft: Heroes of the Village

My son and I do not quite have the same relationship with board games yet that I do: he likes them, he just has not caught the bug. Minecraft, though, did the job. Thanks to his obsession with the videogame, I got him to sit down for Heroes of the Village, and that alone feels like a small victory for a gamer dad.

At its core, it is a very simple set-collection game. You gather the right things and try to complete the sets you need, in a structure so straightforward that a young child can follow it without much trouble.

That simplicity is also its problem. After four or five plays, the path to victory felt far too predictable, and the interaction did not create enough suspense. My son himself suggested house rules so we could play again, saying, quite rightly: “There is no point in us winning all the time, Dad; it needs suspense.”

For five-year-olds, though, I think it is a perfectly fine item, with the usual Ravensburger quality and a theme that makes inviting them to the table much easier. For seven-year-olds it is probably already too light — and just be careful, because the box is a heavy little thing and it really could come flying at your head.