You and your friends have decided to open a vineyard together, working to put your love and hard work into quality wines, but be careful: even good friends can sometimes get a case of sour grapes!
What Is Vineyard?
Vineyard: A Winemaking Game is a worker placement game for 1 to 4 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about an hour to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $50 for a copy of the game. Although the game is marked 14 and up, I think kids who have some experience with worker placement games may be able to pick up on the game (though of course the game is about winemaking, so it may depend on their interest level in the theme).
Vineyard was designed by Roberta Taylor and published by Pencil First Games, with illustrations by Katherine Waddell.
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Vineyard components. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Vineyard Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. Some cards were modified and can be seen in photos as hand cut printouts.
Here’s what comes in the box:
— Game board
— 4 Friends standees (+ Cat standee)
— 32 Barrel tiles (in 3 levels)
— Cloth bag
— 50 Grape tokens
— 44 Checkmark tokens
— 4 Player boards
— 4 Player Aid cards
— 4 Sets of Player cards (7 each)
— 120 Hearts (30 per player)
— 52 Star tokens (in 1, 5, and 10 denominations)
— 52 Coin tokens (in 1, 3, and 5 denominations)
— 17 Improved Action cards
— 32 Train cards (in 3 levels)
— 13 Truck cards (in 3 levels)
— 4 Apprentice cards (for Irena the Apprentice expansion)
— 4 Cat Reference cards (for Jasper the Cat expansion)
— 12 Goal cards (for Unique Flavors expansion)
— 24 Solo cards (for Aunt Mabel’s Visit solo mode)
Kickstarter backers will also get the Local News mini-expansion (a small deck of cards) included for free.
Overall the components are pretty nice: the colorful card backs don’t have text on them but do have some different illustrations that give some indication what they’re for (and the rulebook also shows the card backs to help you identify them). The cardboard tokens are fine and also easily identifiable, though it would be nice to have a little more contrast or size difference for the victory point tokens. The checkmark tokens, used to mark upgrades on the player boards, are quite tiny and are also easy to bump around on the sheets, so that’s the one piece that would be nice to have some sort of component upgrade.
The four friends: Greta, Joe, Sylvie, and Tomás. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The standees are plastic with clear bases, and Katherine Waddell’s illustration style looks like something out of a picture book. They look so happy and excited to start a business together. (Little do they know how heated things are going to get!)
That is one comment I had from one of my players, though: the artwork for the game and the story it tells may give you the impression that this is a friendly, cozy game, but — depending on your gaming group — it can also be a very cutthroat experience. I’ve played with one group that tended to be a little more chill and relaxed, and with another group that I’ve learned should probably never run a vineyard with each other.
Basic action cards. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The cloth bag for the grape tokens is small, but has a flat bottom so that it can stand up and it opens up enough that it’s easy to reach in and grab some tokens.
How to Play Vineyard
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to score the most stars by making sure that your love is included in the wine that eventually gets loaded onto the trucks.
4-player setup. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Setup
Set up the main board. Make supplies of the star tokens, coins, and checkmarks.
Shuffle each of the train decks separately, and fill the train spaces with cards from the first level.
Put the grape tokens in the bag and mix them up — randomly draw nine to fill the vineyard spaces, placing them immature side up.
Shuffle each of the stacks of barrel tiles separately and place them to the side. Draw 3 barrels to place in the center of the board, and then one more to place in the leftmost space in the cellar.
Place all four friends on the Paperwork spot. Shuffle the improved action cards and make a market of 4 face-up cards next to the board.
Randomly draw one truck from each level and place them near the Load Wine action. Turn the Level 1 truck face-up.
Each player starts with a random player board and takes the hearts and basic action cards of their color. Everyone places one heart on the barrel in the cellar. Randomly choose a starting player and give coins based on player order (2 coins for the first 2 players, and 3 coins for the rest).
Gameplay
On your turn, you play an action card below your player board and then send the friend to do the corresponding action. The rule is that you must play cards to the friends evenly, so you can’t play a second card on a friend until all of them have been used. The friend also must move on the board, so if Greta is already at the Make Wine spot, then you cannot use her to Make Wine on this turn. The exception to these rules is Paperwork — you may play your second card to anyone if it’s Paperwork, and you may use a character who is already at the Paperwork space to do Paperwork.
My next action will need to be with Sylvie unless I choose Paperwork. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Most of the actions on the board have to do with the wine production, which follows this process: Cultivate, Harvest, Make Wine, Age Wine, Load. The final location near the top of the board is Greet.
Some locations have a specific number of spaces (the small ovals) and you may only move a friend there if there is space. Others have a large oval (like Paperwork) and any number of friends can be there simultaneously.
Greeting lets you take a train card for its effect. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
When you Greet, you choose one of the train cards, follow its instructions, and discard it. Train cards are then moved to the right to fill in empty spaces and refilled at the end.
Train cards come in blue or red, and provide different types of bonuses. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Blue cards are passenger trains and usually give you money based on particular conditions. Red cars are freight trains and give you an immediate action to perform.
Now, let’s get to producing wine!
The yellow player cultivated the bottom row of the vineyard with Greta and added some hearts to it. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Cultivate lets you grow the grapes in the field. First, you may do a little bit of manipulation to move grape tokens around, but then you choose either a row or column and flip those grapes to their mature side (if they aren’t already). Grapes come in red, white, and purple, with 1 bunch on the immature side and 2 bunches on the mature side. There are also some tokens that show a sprout on the immature side, and a wild (rainbow) bunch on the mature side.
After cultivating, you add 2 hearts to two of the tokens in the row/column you chose. Each token may only have 1 heart on it.
The green player harvested grapes with Tomás, taking a group of 5 grapes. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Harvest grapes to put them into the crush bins. Choose one grape type in the field and collect all of the tokens in one contiguous group (including wild grapes) and move all of them together into one of the three crush bins. Add 1 heart to the bin if you moved up to 3 grapes, and add 2 hearts to the bin if you moved at least 4 grapes. Each bin may have any number of heart tokens on it. (Then refill the field.)
The purple player made wine using Joe, adding his own heart to the completed barrel. He used a purple grape and the two wild grapes for white. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Now it’s time to Make Wine. Choose one of the three available barrels, which show what types of grapes are needed to make it. Choose any of the three crush bins and select grapes to fulfill the requirements, discarding the grape tokens to the side of the board. If there are hearts on those grapes, move them to the barrel. Then, move 1 heart from each player present on the crush bin onto the barrel, and also add 1 of your own hearts from the supply to the barrel. Move the barrel to the leftmost room of the cellar, and refill the barrel tile from the supply.
Some barrels have stars on them — if you make one of these wines, you immediately take that many stars from the supply.
Note that when you Make Wine, you may use any crush bin for any barrel, but you may only take grapes from a single crush bin and cannot combine from multiple bins. Any grapes that weren’t used for the wine remain in the crush bin.
The red player uses Tomás to age wine, adding a heart to one barrel. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
When you Age Wine, you move all of the barrels in the cellar one room to the right (except for the ones in the rightmost room, which don’t move). Each room can hold any number of barrels. Add 1 heart to one of the barrels that was moved, and if you moved at least 4 barrels, add another heart to any barrel that was moved.
Loading wine onto the trucks advances the game but doesn’t add any new hearts. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Finally, when the wine has been aged enough, it’s time to Load. Choose any barrel from the rightmost room in the cellar and move it off the board next to the current truck card. If the truck isn’t full yet (indicated by the number of barrel icons on the card), then you may load a second barrel.
When the truck is full, then it is immediately scored:
First, each barrel is worth 1 star for every player who has at least 1 heart on it.
Then, the truck card indicates if anyone can earn bonus stars. For instance, the truck shown above will give a bonus point for each barrel that has at least one of your hearts on it. Some trucks will score based on who has the most of something.
Run out of actions? Need more money? Time to do paperwork! (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Eventually you may run out of other action cards that you can play, in which case you go back to the office and do some Paperwork. First, you get to collect all of your action cards from your player board and earn 1 coin for each card you picked up (including Paperwork). Then, you may spend coins for upgrades, improving your actions or upgrading your abilities.
Any of these cards could replace the basic “Harvest” action card. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
For 5 coins, you can get an improved action card from the market: these may have different combinations of basic actions, or give you a stronger version of a basic action. When you buy an improved action, you must remove one of your cards that includes the same action icon on it — that card is now out of the game, so you always have 7 cards to work with.
Upgrading your character abilities will make certain actions even more powerful. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Your player board shows the four friends, each paired with a different action. Below each of these actions is 3 abilities (and the top left ability is already checked). You may spend money to upgrade these abilities, from top to bottom (but you can upgrade whichever character you want). When you take an action using the matching friend, you also get all of the corresponding abilities that you have marked.
Game End
The game ends after the third truck has been loaded and scored. In addition to the stars you’ve collected during the game, you score 1 point for every 3 hearts still remaining on the board, and 1 point for every 3 coins you have left.
The player with the most stars wins, with ties going to the player with the most hearts on the board.
Game Variants
The game includes a couple of built-in expansion modules that you can mix and match.
Jasper the Cat moves around the vineyard — if he’s present at a location when you use the action, you get Jasper’s bonus ability, but each round Jasper might move based on a random card draw.
Unique Flavors gives everyone 3 unique goals at the start of the game — these are kept secret from other players. You may only score one of your three goals, and there are some that score when a condition is met and some that can be scored at the end of the game.
Irena the Apprentice can be used in either multiplayer or solo mode. You may hire Irena for 3 coins when you do Paperwork, and she is an extra action card that goes in your hand. You play Irena together with another card, and she’ll either add an extra heart (for actions that add hearts) or return the other action card to your hand, leaving Irena on your player board — but then she blocks any other cards from being played there until you do Paperwork and retrieve all your cards again.
Finally, if you want to play Vineyard solo, you use the Aunt Mabel’s Visit cards. Aunt Mable will be a competitor, playing cards that move friends around the board to take modified versions of the actions. Your goal is to score more points than Aunt Mabel.
Why You Should Play Vineyard
In most worker placement games, each player has their own workers, and a lot of the game is about jockeying for a limited number of positions on the board to take actions or get resources. Eventually you run out of workers and retrieve them, opening up those spaces for everyone to use.
Vineyard takes a different approach: there are still limited spaces for most of the actions, but instead of individual workers for each player, there are just four workers controlled by all of the players. Instead of juggling a limited number of workers, you are juggling a limited number of actions (according to the cards you have left in your hand), and you’re restricted by needing to evenly distribute tasks to the four friends, and also by the fact that the friend must move to a new space to take an action.
Each player board has a different combination of characters and abilities. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
But not all workers and actions are created equal: everyone has a different combination of friends and actions on their player boards. You might get a bonus every time you send Greta to Harvest, while I prefer to use Greta to Age Wine. As players upgrade these abilities, they become more and more invested in using those particular friends to do those specific actions … or to block them.
For instance, in one game one player started the game with Joe with a bonus for Greet, so he wanted to do that whenever he could because it could give him extra stars. If somebody used Joe for a different action, we all knew that player would send Joe back to Greet as soon as he had the chance. (There was a lot of Paperwork involved.) Sometimes we’d try to take up the Greet spot to prevent Joe from going. Sometimes we avoided using Joe as long as possible or tried to time it so that the player’s Greet card wasn’t available yet. But by the end of the game, Joe had probably spent more time just standing out there waving at trains while the other three friends did the actual work of, you know, making wine.
That was with the group that was more cutthroat, and it’s an example of how intense the game can get. We did manage to make wine and load it onto the trucks, but there were definitely a lot of sour grapes involved! One player would work hard at cultivating grapes and put a bunch of love into some grapes, and the next player would intentionally harvest something else, and then a third would crush grapes but avoid using that one bin that somebody had set up. Thematically, it was hilarious — four friends all trying to make sure that their love and hard work ended up in the final wines, yet each one also trying to leave out as much of everyone else’s love as possible.
Of course, you can also be a bit more friendly to each other, and part of the asymmetry of the player boards is intended to encourage that. Since I get a bonus when Joe goes to Harvest, I’m more inclined to move him, which lets somebody else send him to the actions that they prefer for Joe, and so on.
