by UnexpectedGames

It was December 2023. Two months earlier, I had wrapped up work on my latest game, The Mandalorian: Adventures, and I was trying hard to answer a big question: “What game is next for Unexpected Games?”

Creating new games has been my passion since I was a kid, but I was drawing a blank slate. I’d designed over twenty games in the last eighteen years — so many different games in so many genres. I was having trouble coming up with something that wasn’t just retreading old ideas.

I’d spent the last two months tinkering with a few prototypes, while also laying the groundwork for an expansion to The Mandalorian: Adventures. I had some cool game ideas, but every prototype I made fizzled out or felt like a game that already existed. I was frustrated, disappointed, and lost.

Over holiday break, I finally found my inspiration in Dorfromantik: The Board Game. I was watching game reviews and learned something that melted my mind: it was impossible to lose a game of Dorfromantik. WHAT? How does a board game even function if there is no way to lose?

The last time I had experienced a brain-breaking moment like this was when I was introduced to The Mind. On paper The Mind didn’t even sound like a game, but when I played it, I was completely blown away. The game was revolutionary and made me think about games in an entirely new light.

So thinking about Dorfromantik, I gave myself a challenge: How would I design a game if the central premise was that you cannot lose? The first thing I thought of was how this is a common theme in video games. Some of my favorites included Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, and even The Sims.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had never played a board game that captured the same “cozy” vibe found in these video games. Most board games that claim to be cozy have tense competition, crunchy rules, or punishing mechanisms. Yes, they look cozy, but they didn’t have the relaxed energy and open-ended freedom found in cozy video games.

So how could I do accomplish this?

My main design challenge was to answer this question: “If you cannot lose, why are you even playing?” Thinking back to how Animal Crossing handles this, the answer was to give you goals and to make the gameplay rewarding.

The second answer was to make player choice matter. Decisions should have repercussions, and each group’s village should reflect their personality. In addition to choice, it should also let you express your creativity in ways you don’t often see in board games.

My third answer to this question was to make the gameplay story-centric. I love games like Tales of Arabian Nights, and by injecting similar story into my game, I could make the world feel alive. Residents in your town could have their own goals and ambitions, and the land itself could be full of places to explore and secrets to uncover.

Unlike Animal Crossing, I wanted a game that didn’t go on forever. Instead, I wanted different endings based on the choices you’d made throughout the game. (We ended up with five endings, each with their own requirements.)

This thought experiment gave me moment-to-moment incentives, rewards, and a grand overarching purpose.

When I returned to the office in January 2024, I had an entire game sitting in my head, and I was ready to start making a prototype. Within a week, I had my first playable version.

I played it with Josh Beppler, and unlike my other recent prototypes, it was full of magic. Sure, the prototype was ugly and full of holes, but the experience was unique, fun, and full of possibilities.

For the first time in many months, I was excited and inspired. There was work to do, but I could already envision what the final game would look like.

Why, What, and How

The mechanisms of a game are not the game itself; they are merely tools used to express the game. This idea is sacred to me. In fact, when someone describes a game to me by first explaining the mechanisms, I often sigh and lose focus. Instead, I want to hear the STORY first (why), then our GOAL (what), then finally HOW YOU PLAY.

The story of Cozy Stickerville begins with a letter from your father. To summarize, he thinks you’re lazy, but he’s giving you this plot of undeveloped land as one last chance to prove yourself.

Over the course of ten years (individual games), your goal is to develop this land into the village of your dreams. Do you want a quaint village full of happy residents? Or perhaps you love nature and desire a community that can co-exist with wildlife while preserving the ecosystem? Or maybe you care about progress and industry? You want a busy city and all the money that comes with it. Or maybe you dream of a farming town…

There are countless options, and each decision leaves your fingerprints on your village. Regardless of your dreams, you must build, advance, and explore.

So how do you do this?

Each year starts with an introduction that provides story, starting resources, and surprises, then players take turns around the table making decisions and adding to their village as they see fit. There are two steps of your turn, and they are deceptively simple: 1) draw an event card, then 2) resolve an action.

Step 1 – Morning

Your day starts by drawing the top card of the event deck and resolving it. The game is played over ten years, and each year has its own event deck full of surprises.

There are three main types of event cards:

• New Action: These cards stick around and provide new options. These often provide new buildings you can construct or objectives to work towards.

• Choice: These cards ask you to make a choice. After deciding, you find out the consequences, which can be immediate or long lasting.

• Consequence: These cards have two different effects, one of which will happen based on the state of your village and the choices you’ve made.

Step 2 – Afternoon

During the afternoon, you perform one action. You can choose from anything marked with an hourglass icon on the map or on cards in play. For example, you could explore a location on the map or construct a building on the card you drew during step 1. Actions have the following effects:

• Gaining a Card: Some actions give you a specific card from the card catalog. For example: “Gain card 3” means that you thumb through the card catalog and find the card with the big old #3 on the back. This card could have immediate effects or new actions for you to resolve in the future.

• Reading a Story: Many actions tell you to read a specific entry from the storybook. For example: “Read story 7.2” means flip to page 7 of the storybook and read entry number 2. This is how you explore locations, help residents’ personal stories, and uncover mysteries.

• Special Card Actions: Some cards have unique actions printed on them. For example, a card might let you spend three wood to build a house (that is, place a specific sticker on the map). We’ll talk more about stickers in the next section.

After performing your action, the next player begins their turn. Play proceeds round and round until no cards are left in the event deck.

End of the Year

When the event deck runs out, the year ends. You resolve any “end of year” effects on cards in play, then decide whether you want to start the next year or save your game.

Saving the game is ridiculously easy. You simply throw all your resource tokens and cards into the save-game box, then mark your current year.

Accessible but Deep

Now you know the basics of playing the game. Sounds easy, right? Draw an event card, then perform an action. It is simple enough to teach anyone: gamers, kids, grandparents, even that weirdo who lives in your shed. We don’t discriminate.

Remember, though, that a game is far more than its mechanisms. The real magic comes from all of the choices, interactions, and stories you’ll discover. As you play, you’ll find countless activities including fishing, exploring the mine, solving puzzles, and so much more.

So Many Stickers

If you’ve been following along, you might have noticed that I’ve yet to talk about stickers. Let’s remedy that…

The name of the game is Cozy Stickerville, so you really couldn’t have this game without stickers. In fact, the game contains more than eight hundred stickers!

“Wait, wait, wait,” you say as you barge into my office. “If the game uses stickers, can you play it only once? Seems like a waste.”

You startled me, but I quickly recover. I consider asking, “How did you get in here?” but instead answer your question: “Well, first off, the game is played over ten individual years. That’s ten games!”

“So after ten plays I throw it away?” you ask.

“No, not at all. At the end of year ten, you get a resolution to your story, then you can flip over the game board and play ten more times.”

“So twenty games”, you say, tapping your chin. “That’s pretty good. How much does it cost, 60 bucks?”

“Nay. Tis merely $39.99.”

You smile and nod, ignoring the fact that I have begun talking like Shakespeare. You then visit our website and place your pre-order.

Okay, Stickertime

Let’s talk about the types of stickers you’ll find and how they’re used to spark your imagination and tell stories.

Many effects in the game will tell you to place a specific sticker on the map. For example: Place sticker 3c means that you would flip to page 3 of the sticker book, then place sticker c on the map.

In general, you can place stickers wherever you want. We encourage creativity and want your village to capture your unique personality. There are some simple restrictions such as not placing on the fold and not covering other stickers, but these are all intuitive.

Buildings

Perhaps the most obvious stickers in the game are the various buildings you’ll construct: houses, shops, farms, utilities, entertainment, and so much more. Constructing buildings often requires resources, which are shared amongst all players. Some buildings (such as farms) provide resources at the start of each year, and you’ll find other ways to gain resources throughout the game.

Most buildings have a purpose, either through a card that provides a new action or a story for you to encounter there.

Decorations

Some stickers are decorations, such as flowers, animals, roads and more. Many of these are on clear stickers so that you can overlay them on buildings.

Although I’m calling them decorations, these stickers do serve a purpose. Placing these often generates money for you. Other decorations may be needed for goals during the game, for example, you may need a certain number of flowers or roads to accomplish certain ambitions.

Milestones

These stickers record important accomplishments and hardships. You often get these from pivotal events or after accomplishing a goal. For example, selling pets might give you the pet lover milestone.

When you gain a milestone, the sticker is placed on the right side of the game board. This serves two purposes: 1) it records and reminds you of important moments, and 2) it serves as the game’s memory. For example, some events ask whether you have a specific milestone and will give you different effects based on this.

Milestones allow the game to react to the decisions you made, both good and bad.

Some milestones also have icons on them, such as the crown, star, or minus icon. These have no inherent effect, but as you play the game certain effects can reference these.

Hearts, Progress, and Upset

The first page of the stickerbook has many common stickers you’ll use to track various activities in the game. For example, heart stickers can be placed on the happiness track when you accomplish goals.

Heart and progress can also be placed on cards and the storybook entries to track your progress on specific stories. For example, visiting a resident will often give you a short story and a choice. Depending upon what happens, the next time you visit this resident they will give you a different story.

Upset stickers are mainly placed near residents on the map to mark when they are unhappy. This can happen if you treat them poorly or if you don’t fulfill their needs. The consequences of being upset can vary greatly, but let’s just say that if you really like a resident in your town, you should try to find ways of making them happy.

Everything Else

Beyond the basic sticker types are many unique stickers, each with their own uses: catastrophes that can show up on your map, stickers used to solve mysterious puzzles, stickers that upgrade cards, and overlays that change stickers already on the map.

These tend to dive into spoiler territory, so I’m going to avoid showing any of them. All I’ll say is that the longer you play, the more unexpected twists you’ll encounter.

Exploration and Mystery

When you heard the title Cozy Stickerville, the picture in your head was probably something akin to Animal Crossing: building a town, fishing, doing chores, lazing around. While this picture isn’t far off, it contains only a fraction of what you’ll find in the game.

For the purposes of this designer diary, I’ll spoil cards and puzzles only from the Cozy Stickerville prologue, a special demo that I made for the game so that we can show the game at conventions and online on Board Game Arena.

Exploration

Right from the start, there are locations to explore and surprises to find hidden throughout the world.

Let’s say that you’ve built a tent on a previous turn and now wish to explore it for your action. The icon on the map tells you to read story 1.3, so you read that entry in the storybook.

As you can see, you can choose from two options. You cannot read ahead and will learn the outcome only after making your choice. (When playing with a large group, we recommend that another player reads the story aloud to you and presents your options.)

Depending upon how you respond, you’ll get different information. Now, since this is a prologue, it only hints at some of the story yet to come.

Surprises can come from other places as well. Since each year has its own unique event deck, you’re often faced with unexpected decisions at the start of your turn. The world will change and evolve, regardless of how you play.

Mystery

Some of the things you’ll discover in the game require puzzle solving. These parts of the game are optional, but they’ve been popular with our playtesters.

Let’s say that instead of exploring the tent, you decided to explore the gravesite. When you explore this site, the icon tells you to gain catalog card number 2. You draw that card and find a weird message written on the grave. Can you figure out what this means?

This demo puzzle is intentionally on the easy side, but it gives you an idea of the sorts of things you might encounter.

Activities for Everyone

Reading about these puzzles may lead you to believe that this is an escape room-style game in the vein of Unlock! No! Puzzles are simply one of the many activities you can partake in the game.

Some people will love the puzzles and spend their time and energy focusing on this part of the game. Other players may enjoy fishing, or building, or romance, or…

Well, I don’t want to give it all away.

Since the game has so much to offer, it is fun seeing which parts different groups latch onto. The more you pursue a certain path, the more often you’ll see those types of elements show up in your game. For example, if you’re REALLY into farming, you’ll see lots of farming options. If you ignore this storyline, you’ll see other opportunities present themselves.

One of my core philosophies of this game is personalizing, and this mechanism helps ensure that your village will be unique to your group.

Speaking of gaming groups, the game supports 1-6 players, and it’s been fun watching the different group dynamics emerge during playtesting. Some groups focus on the co-operative aspect of the game, consulting with each other before making choices so that they can work together toward common goals. Other groups are more chaotic and will sometimes choose actions to spite other players. There’s no wrong way to play! You have control of your actions during your turn, so you can engage with the game (and your friends) however you’d like. Everyone is welcome, even hellraisers. (Well, unless the group bans you from playing with them, but that’s kind of on you, isn’t it?)

What type of village will you create? If you’ll be in Charlotte, North Carolina, you can try the demo with us at TantrumCon, which runs Feb. 5-8, to get a spoiler-free taste of the game, which will be released worldwide in February 2026.

Corey Konieczka